Participants register at the Halifax Pride annual general meeting in Halifax on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

HALIFAX – Emotions ran high in a jam-packed hotel meeting room in Halifax as a resolution that would have removed a pro-Israel campaign from a Halifax Pride event was defeated by a majority vote at the organization’s annual general meeting.

The motion brought forward by the group Queer Arabs of Halifax was rejected Wednesday by a vote of 210 to 106 with five abstentions.

The group said the “Size doesn’t matter” campaign materials, that were part of a booth hosted by the Atlantic Jewish Council at the Halifax Pride Society’s community fair, were not acceptable amidst international condemnations against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

The materials promote LGBTQ life in Israel and tourism in Tel Aviv.

“Many members of our group feel like they are isolated or they are marginalized with this content being present,” an unidentified spokesman for Queer Arabs of Halifax told the meeting.

He said the group feels the materials promote a state that has violated international humanitarian law.

“We encourage Halifax Pride to identify any other content that pinkwashes — that uses LGBTQ friendliness whilst at the same time they violate international humanitarian law,” he said. “This is not targeting any local community members or any local community groups … we need to call for social justice for all people not just LGBTQ people.”

The motion drew support from the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project, a group that advocates for LGBTQ people across the province.

The action project ran a campaign over the summer to oppose the written materials distributed at the community fair. It also believes the materials amounted to so-called pinkwashing.

The resolution drew vehement opposition from the Atlantic Jewish Council and national Jewish groups, which said it singled the Jewish community out for censorship.

“We choose to talk about Israel because Israel is a core part of our Jewish identity,” said Naomi Rosenfeld, executive director of the Atlantic Jewish Council.

“This is not about what’s going on in the Middle East. This is about why we want to be at Pride and why we want to express ourselves and why this (resolution) is against our freedom of expression.”

The council organized it’s own event before Wednesday’s meeting and many who turned out bought memberships to the AGM, a move that largely helped to sway the vote.

Before the meeting started Halifax Pride Society chair Willem Blois welcomed everyone, but noted that only about 30 people had turned out for last year’s meeting and six the year before.

The Halifax Pride board did not take a position on the resolution but Blois addressed the audience following the vote in an attempt to cool the heads of some who weren’t happy about how the meeting was conducted.

“I want to make it expressly known to everyone that this is not where things end,” he said. “The conversation moves on.”

Former Canadian prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper look on as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and French President Francois Hollande. (Adrian Wyld, CP)

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his Liberal and Conservative predecessors and political luminaries from around the world gathered Friday to mourn Shimon Peres — a dreamer and visionary who personified the hope for peace in the Middle East.

Trudeau, joined by former prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper, led a Canadian delegation to Jerusalem to attend the state funeral for Peres, who died Wednesday after suffering a stroke at the age of 93.

Mount Herzl national cemetery was brimming with political giants and dignitaries, including Prince Charles, U.S. President Barack Obama and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who sat in the front row alongside members of the Peres family.

Trudeau sat beside Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in the second row of mourners while Harper, Chretien, interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose and Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion sat together in the next row.

“Shimon never saw his dream of peace fulfilled,” Obama said during a heartfelt eulogy. “And yet he did not stop dreaming, and he did not stop working.”

No one in the Canadian delegation was among the speakers at the solemn outdoor ceremony, which took place in sweltering early-autumn heat under a sprawling white tent.

Former Canadian cabinet minister Stockwell Day attended the ceremony and said he hoped for a day when Israel would realize Peres’s hope for peace.

As the funeral began, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion sent out a tweet that said “Canada has lost a friend, Israel a father. Rest in peace, Shimon.”

Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, held every major office in Israel, including president and prime minister. He personified the history of Israel during a remarkable seven-decade political career and who came to be seen by many as a visionary and symbol of hopes of Mideast peace.

Obama described the unlikely friendship he forged with Peres given their vastly different backgrounds.

“It was so surprising to see the two of us, where we had started, talking together in the White House, meeting here in Israel,” he said. “I think both of us understood that we were here only because in some way we reflected the magnificent story of our nations.”

He said Peres never tired, never dwelled on the past, and always seemed to have another project in the works.

“It is that faith, that optimism, that belief, even when all the evidence is to the contrary, that tomorrow can be better that makes us not just honour Shimon Peres, but love him,” he said.

“The last of the founding generation is now gone,” he added. “Toda rabah haver yakar,” he said, Hebrew for “thank you so much dear friend.”

Friday’s funeral was Israel’s largest gathering of international dignitaries since the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Peres’ partner in peace, who was killed by a Jewish nationalist in 199.

Clinton, who was president when Peres negotiated a historic interim peace accord with the Palestinians in 1993, called him a “wide champion of our common humanity.”

He described a warm, 25-year friendship and dismissed critics who described Peres as a naive dreamer. He recalled a meeting with Peres where Israeli and Arab children sang together John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

“He started life as Israel’s brightest student, became its best teacher and ended up its biggest dreamer,” said Clinton.

“He lived 93 years in a state of constant wonder over the unbelievable potential of all the rest of us to rise above our wounds, our resentments, our fears to make the most of today and claim the promise of tomorrow.”

The funeral created numerous logistical and security challenges, and roads, including the main highway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, were closed.

FILE – In this Nov. 2, 2015 file photo, former Israeli President Shimon Peres speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty, File)

JERUSALEM — Israel on Wednesday mourned the death of Shimon Peres, a former president and prime minister whose life story mirrored that of the Jewish state, as the government began preparations for a funeral that is expected to bring together an array of world leaders and international dignitaries.

Peres, celebrated around the world as a Nobel Prize-winning visionary who pushed his country toward peace during a remarkable seven-decade career, died early Wednesday from complications from a stroke. He was 93.

His son, Chemi, confirmed his death Wednesday morning to reporters gathered at the hospital where Shimon Peres had been treated for the past two weeks.

Peres’ condition worsened following a major stroke two weeks ago that led to bleeding in his brain. He was sedated and on a respirator during most of his hospitalization.

“Today with deep sorrow we bid farewell to our beloved father, the ninth president of Israel,” Chemi Peres said.

“Our father’s legacy has always been to look to tomorrow. We were privileged to be part of his private family, but today we sense that the entire nation of Israel and the global community share this great loss. We share this pain together.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Peres as a “man of vision” and convened his Cabinet for a special meeting.

“As a man of security, he fortified Israel’s strength in many ways, some of which even today are still unknown,” he said. “As a man of peace, he worked until his final days toward reconciling with our neighbours for a better future for our children.”

Officials said that Peres’ body would lie in state at the Knesset, or parliament, on Thursday to allow the public to pay final respects. His funeral was set for Friday at Mount Herzl, the country’s national cemetery in Jerusalem. Yona Bartal, a former personal aide to Peres, said the arrangements were in line with his wishes.

As word of Peres’ death spread, reaction started pouring in from around the globe.

“Shimon Peres was, above all, a man of peace and a man dedicated to the well-being of the Jewish people,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a statement late Tuesday.

“Over the course of his long and distinguished life, Mr. Peres made enormous contributions to the founding and building of the State of Israel. He was devoted to promoting understanding between his country and its neighbours, and shared a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to create peace in the Middle East.”

Trudeau added that Peres was a “great friend to Canada” who visited often and “helped build relations that remain strong to this day.”

Gov. Gen. David Johnston said in a statement that Peres “meant so much to Israel, to Jewish people in Canada and around the world.”

“He will be missed and remembered by all those whose lives he has touched.”

Former prime minister Stephen Harper posted a message on Twitter saying he and his wife, Laureen, “are saddened to learn of the passing of dear friend Shimon Peres.” Harper offered “sincere condolences to the Peres family and to the people of Israel.

Former foreign affairs minister John Baird also expressed his condolences on Twitter, calling Peres a “wonderful human being” and that the world has lost a great statesman and that both he and Canada “have lost a friend.”

“Few have accomplished more for the advancement of Israel and the Jewish people than Shimon Peres,” said interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose in a statement.

“He was a man who was the architect of Israel’s robust defence strategy, and someone who also won the Nobel Peace Prize in an attempt to find peace with the Palestinian people.”

Added U.S. President Barack Obama: “There are few people who we share this world with, who change the course of human history, not just through their role in human events, but because they expand our moral imagination and force us to expect more of ourselves. My friend Shimon was one of those people.”

Trudeau and Obama will be among several leaders expected at Peres’ funeral in Jerusalem on Friday. Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Bill and Hillary Clinton, Britain’s Prince Charles and French President Francois Hollande along with senior officials from Germany, Mexico, Australia and elsewhere, would also attend. It will be the biggest gathering of international leaders to converge on Israel since the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish ultranationalist in 1995.

The Vatican said Pope Francis will not attend the funeral after the Foreign Ministry earlier said the Pope would attend.

Obama, who awarded Peres the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, eulogized Peres as a man who represented “the essence of Israel itself.”

Shimon Peres’ son-in-law, Dr. Rafi Walden, said the family had spoken to Obama overnight and was “very moved.” Walden, who was also Peres’ personal physician, said he died overnight “without suffering.”

Bill Clinton and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said they “lost a true and treasured friend.” Clinton was president when Peres negotiated a historic interim peace agreement with the Palestinians in 1993. Peres shared the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.

Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush also issued statements of mourning.

While Western leaders eulogized Peres, the Palestinians remained conspicuously silent. On one hand, the Palestinians appreciated Peres’ commitment to peace. But he was also controversial for overseeing a war in Lebanon while he was prime minister in 1996 in which dozens of civilians were killed in an Israeli artillery strike. Peres, like other Israeli leaders, also allowed settlement construction to take place during his years in leadership positions.

Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is the elder statesman of Israeli politics, one of the country’s most admired leaders and the last surviving link to its founding fathers.

All of Israel’s TV and radio stations devoted their programs to Peres’ passing, playing sad music and interviewing friends, commentators and former officials who paid tribute to him.

In an unprecedented seven-decade political career, Peres filled nearly every position in Israeli public life and was credited with leading the country through some of its most defining moments, from creating its nuclear arsenal in the 1950s, to disentangling its troops from Lebanon and rescuing its economy from triple-digit inflation in the 1980s, to guiding a skeptical nation into peace talks with the Palestinians in the 1990s.

A protege of Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion, he led the Defence Ministry in his 20s and spearheaded the development of Israel’s nuclear program. He was first elected to parliament in 1959 and later held every major Cabinet post — including defence, finance and foreign affairs — and served three brief stints as prime minister. His key role in the first Israeli-Palestinian peace accord earned him a Nobel Peace Prize and revered status as Israel’s then most recognizable figure abroad.

And yet, for much of his political career he could not parlay his international prestige into success in Israeli politics, where he was branded by many as both a utopian dreamer and political schemer. His well-tailored, necktied appearance and swept-back grey hair seemed to separate him from his more informal countrymen. He suffered a string of electoral defeats: competing in five general elections seeking the prime minister’s spot, he lost four and tied one.

He finally secured the public adoration that had long eluded him when he has chosen by parliament to a seven-year term as Israel’s ceremonial president in 2007, taking the role of elder statesman.

Peres was celebrated by doves and vilified by hawks for advocating far-reaching Israeli compromises for peace even before he negotiated the first interim accord with the Palestinians in 1993 that set into motion a partition plan that gave them limited self-rule. That was followed by a peace accord with neighbouring Jordan. But after a fateful six-month period in 1995-96 that included Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings and Peres’ own election loss to the more conservative Benjamin Netanyahu, the prospects for peace began to evaporate.

Relegated to the political wilderness, he created his non-governmental Peres Center for Peace that raised funds for co-operation and development projects involving Israel, the Palestinians and Arab nations. He returned to it at age 91 when he completed his term as president.

Shimon Perski was born on Aug. 2, 1923, in Vishneva, then part of Poland. He moved to pre-state Palestine in 1934 with his immediate family. Her grandfather and other relatives stayed behind and perished in the Holocaust. Rising quickly through Labor Party ranks, he became a top aide to Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and a man Peres once called “the greatest Jew of our time.”

At 29, he was the youngest person to serve as director of Israel’s Defence Ministry, and is credited with arming Israel’s military almost from scratch. Yet throughout his political career, he suffered from the fact that he never wore an army uniform or fought in a war.

Of his 10 books, several amplified his vision of a “new Middle East” where there was peaceful economic and cultural co-operation among all the nations of the region.

Despite continued waves of violence that pushed the Israeli political map to the right, the concept of a Palestinian state next to Israel became mainstream Israeli policy many years after Peres advocated it.

Shunted aside during the 1999 election campaign, won by party colleague Ehud Barak, Peres rejected advice to retire, assuming the newly created and loosely defined Cabinet post of Minister for Regional Co-operation.

In 2000, Peres absorbed another resounding political slap, losing an election in the parliament for the largely ceremonial post of president to Likud Party backbencher Moshe Katsav, who was later convicted and imprisoned for rape.

Even so, Peres refused to quit. In 2001, at age 77, he took the post of foreign minister in the government of national unity set up by Ariel Sharon, serving for 20 months before Labor withdrew from the coalition.

Then he followed Sharon into a new party, Kadima, serving as vice-premier under Sharon and his successor, Ehud Olmert, before assuming the presidency.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/shimon-peres-dead-at-93/feed/1Israeli official: Gaza underground wall to be done in monthshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israeli-official-gaza-underground-wall-to-be-done-in-months/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israeli-official-gaza-underground-wall-to-be-done-in-months/#respondSun, 25 Sep 2016 14:33:38 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=928417Israel, claiming that Hamas is trying to restore its military capabilities, works to neutralize its tunnel system

]]>BEERSHEBA, Israel — A senior Israeli military official on Sunday said a massive underground barrier being built along the Gaza border to defend against Hamas tunnels should be completed in a matter of months, dealing what he said would be a serious blow to the Islamic militant group.

The Southern Command official said the structure was at the forefront of a new effort meant to rob Hamas of one of its most potent weapons.

During a 2014 war, Hamas militants on several occasions made their way into Israel through a tunnel network, though they did not manage to reach civilian areas. Israel destroyed 32 tunnels during that conflict, and since then has made neutralizing the tunnel threat a top priority.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under military briefing guidelines, said Hamas is now trying to restore its military capabilities, with its primary focus on building a subterranean warren of tunnels to hide from Israeli strikes and sneak into Israel to carry out attacks in a future round of fighting.

In recent weeks, Israel is believed to have begun work on a 60-kilometre underground barrier expected to stretch dozens of metres deep. Work crews have been spotted digging trenches and installing infrastructure in the ground.

In a briefing with reporters Sunday, the Israeli official showed video footage of heavy machinery raking the sandy border area, a series of holes drilled deep into the ground, a stretch of land the army has flooded, and some controlled explosions. The army also showed photos of simulated tunnels where soldiers train for subterranean combat.

He declined to discuss specific features of the barrier being built, calling it a key strategic project. But he said the new wall will defend Israel’s border with Gaza both above and below the ground. The army’s goal, he said, is to turn the underground battlefield into a “death trap” for Hamas.

“It will take time to build it. It’s a big project. But it is a main goal,” he said.

Since the war, Israel has announced the discovery of several more tunnels. Israel has already surrounded Gaza with a sophisticated above-ground fence fortified with sensors, cameras, barbed wire and watch towers.

Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel’s destruction, seized power of Gaza in 2007. Since then, the sides have fought three wars.

During the 2014 fighting, the group fired several thousand rockets and missiles into Israel. More than 2,200 Palestinians, over half of them civilians, were killed in the fighting, along with 73 people on the Israeli side.

The official said Hamas has been steadily rebuilding its capabilities since the fighting, though Israeli officials do not believe the group is looking for another round of hostilities for the time being.

Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas official in Gaza, said the Israeli efforts would fail.

“They must realize that they will not enjoy security as long as the Palestinian people don’t enjoy it,” he said. “The language of threats no longer terrifies our people.”

Israeli President Shimon Peres (left) lights a candle during a memorial service in memory of the late Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin Jerusalem on November 08, 2011. GALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Images

JERUSALEM — Former Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday suffered a stroke and was rushed to a hospital.

His office said the 93-year-old’s condition was stable and that he was fully conscious. It gave no further details, but Channel 10 TV, citing hospital officials, said he was awake but confused, and that tests had determined he suffered a stroke.

Another TV station, Channel 2, reporting from the hospital, described the stroke as “significant” and “serious.” Early this year, Peres was twice hospitalized for heart problems but quickly released.

Peres has held virtually every senior political office in Israel over a seven-decade career, including three terms as prime minister as well as stints as foreign minister and finance minister.

He won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in reaching an interim peace agreement with the Palestinians. As president, a largely ceremonial office, he cultivated an image as the country’s elder statesman and became a popular fixture at international conferences like the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Peres has remained active since completing his seven-year term as president in 2014, and is one of the country’s most popular public figures. He often hosts public events at his peace centre, bringing together Arabs and Jews in efforts to promote peace and coexistence.

In a message posted on Facebook, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wished Peres a speedy recovery. “Shimon, we love you and the entire nation wishes you get well,” he said.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/shimon-peres-suffers-stroke-rushed-to-hospital/feed/0Elizabeth May’s split with the Greenshttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/elizabeth-mays-split-with-the-greens/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/elizabeth-mays-split-with-the-greens/#commentsWed, 10 Aug 2016 19:32:33 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=910559The leader and her party don't see eye-to-eye on the BDS movement. Maybe it's time for them to go their separate ways.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May, speaks to volunteers, campaign staff and supporters, after being re-elected during election night at the Victoria Conference Centre in Victoria, B.C., Monday, October 19, 2015. (CHAD HIPOLITO/CP)

Noted reluctant politician Elizabeth May recently expressed dismay with Canada’s Green party, the party she has led for the last 10 years. The majority of about 250 members gathered for the party’s convention had just voted in favour of a resolution supporting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), a movement that aims to economically isolate the state of Israel. Doing so, the reasoning goes, pressures the country into ending the occupation of Palestine, dismantling the Israeli West Bank barrier and ceasing the building of settlements on Palestinian land.

“As leader, I am disappointed that the membership has adopted a policy in favour of a movement that I believe to be polarizing, ineffective and unhelpful in the quest for peace and security for the peoples of the Middle East,” May said, adding that she would “continue to express personal opposition to BDS.”

You can understand her frustration. In 2013, May denounced the BDS movement as an “agenda hostile to the state of Israel” that wasn’t “a constructive way forward.” Earlier this year, she voiced her opposition to BDS, though ultimately voted against a Conservative motion condemning the BDS movement. Clearly, the critiquing of her own party in the wake of its BDS vote wasn’t damage control.

Admirable as it is, May’s characteristic idealism has put her at odds with her own party. And in coming out so stridently against BDS, she also robs the Greens of a significant political space left vacant by the country’s three major political parties.

Let’s be clear: the BDS movement is, at best, a blunt instrument. Its ideological underpinning—that Israel is an apartheid state akin to South Africa circa 1982—is both unhelpful to the movement’s own legitimacy and an insult to actual sufferers of government-sanctioned racial segregation.

The very real problems of Israeli occupation, as well as the scourge of its ever-advancing settlements, are cheapened when the organization in question slathers its spiel with terms like “ethnic cleansing,” “colonialism” and “regime of oppression.” On that note, BDS makes it too easy for its detractors to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

What BDS isn’t, though, is a fringe movement. In Canada, dozens of groups have endorsed BDS, including unions, university professors as well as student government associations, at least two church conferences and several progressive organizations, Jewish and otherwise.

Not coincidentally, the Green Party of Canada draws its support from these very demographics, and it’s here where things get tricky for Elizabeth May. In regards to Israel, the governing Liberals and the Conservatives are violently in agreement. Under Tom Mulcair, in a quest for Liberal votes, the NDP joined their ranks.

In doing so, the parties have abandoned a significant part of the electorate. One need look no further than the vote on the Conservative’s anti-BDS motion. Fifty-one of the country’s 338 MPs voted against it, the vast majority of them were from the NDP. Regardless of how you feel about the BDS movement, it has significant support amongst the Canadian electorate.

Such support deserves political representation. The U.S. Green Party knows as much; it, like the U.K. Green Party, officially champions the BDS cause. In endorsing BDS, Canada’s Green party hoi polloi has (accidentally or otherwise) demonstrated a rare bit of political savvy. Except, of course, its leader and only elected member has come out against it.

The Green Party of Canada has done well under May. She is the party’s first elected member in its history. She has injected herself and her party into the national conversation, as well as into the good graces of the Trudeau government, in a way that far outstrips the Greens’ 3.4 per cent share of the vote in the last election.

May has expressed her frustration with the political process. “Politics is awful,” she told the Globe and Mail recently, after essentially saying she wouldn’t wish the Green party leadership on her worst enemy. Given the direction of her own party, perhaps now is a good time for a graceful exit. At the very least, she deserves it.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/elizabeth-mays-split-with-the-greens/feed/20Israeli official: Reconciliation deal reached with Turkeyhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israeli-official-reconciliation-deal-reached-with-turkey/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israeli-official-reconciliation-deal-reached-with-turkey/#respondSun, 26 Jun 2016 18:59:59 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=892715Relations between the once close allies broke down after a deadly Israeli naval raid in 2010

JERUSALEM — Israel has reached a reconciliation deal with Turkey to end a bitter six-year rift between the Mideast powers, an official said Sunday.

Relations between the former close allies imploded in 2010 following an Israeli naval raid that killed nine Turkish activists, including a dual American citizen, who were on a ship trying to breach Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Following the incident, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Israel and greatly scaled back military and economy ties. But relations were never broken completely.

Turkey’s move toward rapprochement with Israel comes amid its deepening isolation in the region following a breakdown of ties with Russia and Egypt as well as the turmoil in neighbouring Syria.

The Israeli official confirmed the details of the agreement on Sunday. He spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on an official visit to Rome, is expected to announce details on Monday, and the two sides plan to sign the agreement on Tuesday.

The official said the impending deal would include $20 million in Israeli compensation for families of those killed in the raid, an end to all Turkish claims against Israeli military personnel and the state of Israel over the raid, and the mutual restoration of ambassadors.

The official said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to a separate document instructing all relevant Turkish agencies to help resolve the issue of Israel’s missing citizens, apparently referring to the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in the 2014 Gaza war which are believed to be held by Hamas. An Israeli of Ethiopian descent and a Bedouin from Israel’s Arab minority are also believed to be held in Gaza.

Families of the soldiers had urged the government to hold off on any reconciliation deal until their plight is addressed. Relatives of one of the soldiers, Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul, set up a protest tent outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem.

]]>JERUSALEM — Israel’s defence minister announced his resignation Friday, saying the governing party had been taken over by “extremist and dangerous elements” and that he no longer trusts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The departure of Moshe Yaalon — one of the last moderate voices in the Likud Party — deepens the rift in the Cabinet between the security establishment and the hard-line politicians.

Netanyahu reportedly intends to appoint former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to the post of defence minister. The 57-year-old Lieberman is one of Israel’s most polarizing politicians. Over three decades, he has at times been Netanyahu’s closest ally and at other times a fierce rival.

If Yaalon is replaced as expected by Lieberman, command of the Defence Ministry will transition from a general who led one of Israel’s most elite commando units and later was its chief of staff to a politician who held the rank of corporal, almost the lowest military rank. Lieberman’s limited military experience raises further questions about the appointment.

Yaalon told reporters that “Israel is a healthy society” with a “sane majority” that is tolerant of minorities and strives for a liberal and democratic society.

“But to my great dismay, extremist and dangerous elements have taken over Israel, also over the Likud Party, and are shaking the house and threatening to hurt its inhabitants,” he said. “I fought with all my might against manifestations of extremism, violence and racism in Israeli society that threatens its sturdiness and is seeping into the army and already damaging it.”

Earlier, Yaalon said he told Netanyahu that “following his conduct in recent developments and in light of the lack of trust in him, I am resigning from the government.” He added that he also was resigning from parliament and was “taking a timeout from political life.”

Yaalon and Netanyahu have butted heads repeatedly over military officers talking publicly about political matters. Netanyahu was enraged earlier this month when a senior officer made public comments viewed as critical of the government, while Yaalon backed the general’s right to freely express his views.

Yaalon said he always put Israel’s security and other interests above his own, but “unfortunately I found myself lately in tough disputes over moral and professional issues with the prime minister and several ministers and members of parliament.”

Tensions between Yaalon and Netanyahu escalated in March, when military leaders criticized a soldier who was caught on video fatally shooting an already-wounded Palestinian attacker. The solider is now on trial for manslaughter. While Yaalon has backed the military, Lieberman went to the court to offer his support to the soldier.

Netanyahu said he regretted Yaalon’s decision and that he would have preferred him to stay on, but as foreign minister. The prime minister also said the political shake-up was not because of differences with Yaalon but out of the need to widen the coalition to “bring stability to Israel against the big challenges it faces.”

He said the military “will continue to preserve the highest moral standards” and added that the army must remain outside of politics. “In a democracy, the military echelon is subordinate to the political echelon, and not the reverse,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu this week invited Lieberman’s ultranationalist Yisrael Beteinu Party to shore up his shaky parliamentary coalition and negotiation teams have been meeting to hammer out the details of their alliance.

Yaalon’s resignation solidifies the takeover of hard-liners in the party, especially in the Cabinet, which is dominated by those who oppose concessions to the Palestinians.

Cabinet Minister Gila Gamliel said Yaalon’s departure was a “tremendous loss” for the ruling Likud. She told Israel Radio she believes it was a “mistake” not to offer Yaalon another post and keep him in the coalition.

Former Defence Minister Ehud Barak criticized the political upheaval.

“There has been a hostile takeover of the leadership by elements foreign to the spirit of the state of Israel and to the spirit of the military,” he said in an interview with Channel 10 TV.

“This is a wrong appointment. To take the best man — the most fitting for the job — and demote him, and put in his place a person with political and other capabilities but completely lacking in experience in this field, is a mistake and an expression of faulty considerations,” Barak said.

He called it a move that is “irresponsible for the military and the citizens of the country.”

Many Israelis have questioned the wisdom of appointing Lieberman to the sensitive post of defence minister over Yaalon, a former army chief of staff who is generally respected for his knowledge of military affairs. Lieberman has no such military experience, although he has held a number of Cabinet posts, including stints as foreign minister.

Lieberman’s hard-line stance has made him an influential voice at home but has at times alienated Israel’s allies abroad. He has questioned the loyalty of Israel’s Arab minority and brashly confronted Israel’s foreign critics. He has expressed skepticism over pursuing peace with the Palestinians, and is pushing a proposal to impose the death penalty against Arabs convicted of acts of terrorism.

Lieberman, who once worked as a bouncer at a bar, immigrated to Israel in 1978 from Moldova in the former Soviet Union and still speaks with a thick Russian accent.

He became a national figure in 1996 as a top aide to Netanyahu in a previous term as prime minister. Lieberman, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim, later quit Likud and established Yisrael Beiteinu to represent the more than 1 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Those close to Lieberman say he is more pragmatic and level-headed than he appears in public.

The addition of his party’s six seats will give Netanyahu a 67-53 majority in the 120-seat parliament, providing new room to manoeuvr on domestic affairs. Along with military policy, the Defence Ministry handles delicate security issues with allies, some of whom Lieberman has antagonized. Lieberman has angered Egypt, which has close security ties with Israel, with comments years ago calling for Israel to bomb the Aswan Dam. In another flap, he said Egypt’s then-president, Hosni Mubarak, could “go to hell.”

Yaalon’s departure also paves the way for Yehuda Glick to enter the government. An Israeli-American activist, Glick has campaigned to allow Jewish prayer at Jerusalem’s holiest site, the hilltop compound in the Old City that is sacred to both Jews and Muslims.

The compound is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, site of the two Jewish biblical Temples and the holiest place in Judaism. Known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, it houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the gold-topped Dome of the Rock, and is the third-holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Perceived changes to the status quo that bans Jews from praying at the site have sparked Palestinian violence. Tensions erupted in September and months of bloodshed followed with dozens of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians and security personnel.

Since then, Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings, shootings and vehicular assaults, have killed 28 Israelis and two Americans. About 200 Palestinians have been killed as well, most of whom Israel says were attackers.

Glick survived an attempt on his life in 2014 when he was shot several times by a Palestinian.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/israel-defence-chief-quits-cites-lack-of-trust-in-netanyahu/feed/5Wynne’s Middle East trade mission to focus on research, life scienceshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/wynnes-middle-east-trade-mission-to-focus-on-research-life-sciences/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/wynnes-middle-east-trade-mission-to-focus-on-research-life-sciences/#respondSat, 14 May 2016 15:24:38 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=873873The Ontario premier's delegation of government officials and business, academic and research representatives is travelling to Israel and the West Bank

]]>TORONTO – Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne begins a week-long trade mission Sunday to the Middle East, with a focus on the life sciences and research sectors.

The delegation of government officials as well as approximately 130 business, academic and research representatives is travelling to Israel and the West Bank.

Wynne told a pre-mission reception for the delegates earlier this month that Ontario and Israel share many of the same priorities, namely developing “strong, competitive business environments that support innovation and growth.”

“Ontario’s strengths in research, innovation and entrepreneurship help us compete globally — and this mission will help us establish Ontario as a top innovation and knowledge economy partner for Israel,” Wynne said.

“Together we will promote the exchange of information and knowledge, seek new opportunities for collaboration and sign new business agreements that will create economic growth and jobs in both regions.”

In Israel, the premier is set to meet with political, business and innovation leaders “to exchange knowledge and sign agreements,” while in the West Bank she will focus on “innovation and education initiatives,” her office said.

Two-way trade between Ontario and Israel last year was valued at more than $900 million, Wynne’s office said. Ontario and Israel already have a memorandum of understanding on research, which the premier’s office said has helped generate 15 industry-led R&D projects and leverage more than $16 million in outside funding.

The delegation is set to travel with the premier to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, then on May 19 the premier and some of the delegates will go to Ramallah in the West Bank and to Haifa in Israel the following day.

Delegates include Jewish-focused businesses and organizations looking to strengthen existing ties to Israel, universities and research institutes such as the University of Toronto and the Ontario Brain Institute, and life science companies. Travelling with the mission are representatives from medical device companies hoping to expand or collaborate on research, pharmaceutical companies, an addiction treatment facility, a research chemical manufacturer and other life science companies.

BlackBerry, Roots Canada, IBM Canada Ltd., Scotiabank, Thomson Reuters and the Toronto Stock Exchange are also part of the trade mission.

BlackBerry hopes to “raise (its) profile as a software company,” Roots is looking for new business opportunities and Thomson Reuters is looking to learn about the start-up ecosystem and models of financial technology accelerators, according to the mission’s delegate directory.

Wynne will also be accompanied by Training, Colleges and Universities Minister Reza Moridi, Health Minister Eric Hoskins and MPP Monte Kwinter, who is the parliamentary assistant to the minister of citizenship, immigration and international trade.

As premier, Wynne has led two trade missions to China, which she has said generated about $3.5 billion in investments and created thousands of jobs. Wynne also went to India earlier this year — a mission she said generated agreements valued at more than $240 million.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/wynnes-middle-east-trade-mission-to-focus-on-research-life-sciences/feed/0Why Israel is so successful at building tech companieshttp://www.macleans.ca/economy/why-israel-is-so-successful-at-building-tech-companies/
http://www.macleans.ca/economy/why-israel-is-so-successful-at-building-tech-companies/#respondTue, 01 Mar 2016 02:04:05 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=840887Israel’s chief scientist explains why the country has the highest concentration of startups in the world. Are there lessons for Canada?

Israeli start-up Mobli Media Inc is taking on Internet giants Google, Facebook and Yahoo with an innovative online search tool to find the latest photos and videos across social media sites. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

With oil prices in the tank, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has highlighted the need to focus on the “resourcefulness” of Canadians to drive the economy in the future, not Canada’s “resources.” But the country’s track record when it comes to innovation—making money off ideas—is spotty at best. While we boast a well-educated workforce, world-class universities and a healthy entrepreneurial streak, Canada lags behind many of its peers when it comes to investment in corporate R&D, patent filings and venture capital financing, among other things.

What’s the fix? One country that seems to have it all figured out is Israel. With just eight million people, Israel boasts one of the highest concentrations of start-up companies in the world, earning it the moniker “Silicon Wadi.” Maclean’s senior writer Chris Sorensen spoke with Avi Hasson, Israel’s chief scientist, to find about the country’s 47-year-old innovation strategy, born largely out of necessity, and what Canada can learn from it.

Q: What are the key elements of the Israel’s innovation model? Will it work elsewhere?

A: You can’t copy and paste. You can’t think that things that worked in Israel will work for Canada or any other country. Size matters and culture matters. In a country like Israel, where high-tech is 50 per cent of our exports, you obviously don’t need to educate any government about how strategic the issue is. But there are nevertheless a couple of key points. One is the Israeli government’s approach to public-private partnerships. It starts from understanding the respective roles of the public and private sector within the world of innovation, and that government has a role to play regardless of your economic beliefs, because market failures are inherent in this space. The second one—and this is specific to Israel, so I’m not criticizing others—we don’t think we know better than the private sector when it comes to determining the next big thing. We don’t have strategic sectors. We don’t think we can build or mentor companies.

Q: How do you shape your approach?

A: We focus on building infrastructure, which is easy to understand. The other part is a bit more counterintuitive. It’s the notion that government can—and should—take on more risk than the private sector. It really goes to the heart of us trying to create additionality and not crowd out private investors. We’re trying to put our dollars into the places that matter most.

Q: So you invest in areas where the private sector is less likely to invest because of the risks?

A: My economic benefits are very different from that of a venture capitalist. Say your company fails—sorry for that—but four new start-ups emerge because of the IP, know-how, talents and lessons learned. For a venture capitalist, this was a very bad investment. But for government, it was a very successful investment. The spillover effects of the failure were actually very positive. So I can take on more risk because my return calculation is different. This isn’t just economic mumbo-jumbo. It actually works.

Q: One criticism of Israel’s model is that, despite the impressive number of start-ups, few go on to become big, billion-dollar companies. Is there a role for government there as well?

A: Ten years ago, it was very hard to name a dozen companies in Israel that had over $50 million in sales. Now there’s a very long list of such companies. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. You can’t run before you walk. What you see is that most of these companies are run by second- or third-time entrepreneurs who maybe sold their first company and gained experience in the large corporation they sold to. So they’re starting out again and aiming higher.

Q: When you look at the innovation question in Canada—some might even call it a crisis—what do you see as the key challenges and opportunities?

A: It’s a bit presumptuous of me to give both analysis and advice. But I will say that everywhere I go, people understand the connection between innovation, R&D and prosperity. That’s a global trend. And I think everyone understands government needs to play a role. But I’m not sure there’s one way to do it. We have a model that’s worked for us, but obviously it has its trade-offs. However, I would say some of our practices make sense: the public-private partnerships, the approach to risk and creating an environment [for success]. At the end of the day, that’s what I do. My job is to create the best environment—human capital, venture capital, a tax regime and an IP regime—for entrepreneurs, multinationals or researchers to realize their potential.

Q: Some have warned that Canada risks creating a “branch plant” economy by relying too heavily on foreign firms to spur innovation here. How do multinationals like Facebook, Google and others fit into the Israeli strategy? Are there concerns that the value of what they’re doing in Israel is being realized in Silicon Valley, not Tel Aviv?

A: It’s a legitimate discussion. Israel is unique in terms of the magnitude of the phenomenon, with about 300 multinational companies in the country. About half of the Israeli high-tech workforce is employed in those centres. The other thing that makes Israel unique is that most of these foreign companies grew through the acquisition of Israeli start-ups. That’s different than in any other country. But I’m not sure I can say in 2016 what it means to be an Israeli company. And because I don’t know, I go beyond that question and say I don’t care. The only thing I care about is where the economic impact happens. If a large multinational acquires an Israeli company, I meet with management and show them why the best thing for the business is to move more intellectual property and employees to Israel. I also spend a lot of time engaging multinationals because they can provide infrastructure, expertise or market understanding that small companies don’t have. As long as you structure it in a good way, there’s a mutual benefit for both sides. This is why companies come to Israel. It’s the whole ecosystem. It’s a fount of innovation.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/economy/why-israel-is-so-successful-at-building-tech-companies/feed/0Novel cut from Israeli school curriculum becomes bestsellerhttp://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/novel-cut-from-israeli-school-curriculum-becomes-bestseller/
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/novel-cut-from-israeli-school-curriculum-becomes-bestseller/#commentsFri, 29 Jan 2016 10:42:10 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=827547Borderlife, a novel about an Israeli-Palestinian romance, will be translated into English later this year

Israeli author Dorit Rabinyan poses with her Hebrew-language novel titled “Gader Haya” (known in English as “Borderlife”) on December 31, 2015 at her house in Tel Aviv. (Gil Cohen/AFP/Getty Images)

A novel by an Israeli author about a love affair between an Israeli Jewish woman and a Palestinian Muslim man from the West Bank who meet in New York has been excluded from Israel’s regular high school curriculum, out of concern it might threaten the Jewish identity of students reading it.

The book, written by Dorit Rabinyan and known in English as Borderlife, was recommended for inclusion in the curriculum of upper high school grades by a committee advising the education ministry, which nevertheless decided against it. “Young people of adolescent age tend to romanticize and don’t, in many cases, have the systemic vision that includes considerations involving maintaining the national-ethnic identity of the people and the significance of miscegenation,” a senior ministry official said, according to Ha’aretz, an Israeli newspaper. (The Hebrew word translated by Ha’aretz as “miscegenation” can also mean “assimilation.”) The ofﬁcial, in other words, feared that reading the book might lead students to accept as normal romance between Jews and Muslims.

The education ministry later backtracked to some degree and said the book could be taught in advanced literature classes, but would not be part of the regular curriculum, according to Ha’aretz.

In an interview, Rabinyan describes the novel’s central romance as one in which the protagonists for the first time discover a member of their homeland’s opposite community as an individual. Hilmi, the Palestinian, is simply Hilmi, a man. And Liat “is no longer her Israeli people, her Israeli country, army, government. She’s herself.”

At the same time, Rabinyan says, every individual is shaped by the soil on which they grow, and she wanted to explore the resulting tensions when the two characters connect. “What I was looking into was the power of love to drift us into each other’s identity, and to have our mutual third identity that is born be a threat, be the one that can colour us with the loved one’s colours, and take over and maybe swallow ourselves and our original identity,” she says.

Rabinyan drew on her own past when writing the book. “I did live a year in New York. I did meet a group of young Palestinians who impressed me and really made me tick in a way that inspired me.” But she says that when writing literature, memories are not enough. “We have to add a portion of fantasy.”

The political undertones of the book might not have been Rabinyan’s primary concern, but they are unavoidable. The symbiosis of the couple, she says, is like the symbiosis of Palestinians and Israelis inhabiting the same land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. “We have no borderlines between us, and we have no definition of our identities in ways that usually two neighbours have, and this is why we treat one another in such a way that maintains the conflict to be more than just a fight of two gangs over territory,” she says.

Instead, says Rabinyan, the conﬂict is defined as an existential question of identity. “It’s a matter of the Jewish DNA being threatened by the surrounding Arab culture,” and it is this fear of being swallowed that justifies—demands, even—Jews’ isolation from their Palestinian neighbours.

Fear that her book might somehow erode Jewish Israeli isolationism was a reason behind the education ministry’s hostility toward it, says Rabinyan, who describes herself as a Zionist committed to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state within its 1967 borders. “The zeitgeist in Israel nowadays is to eliminate anything that might [encourage] dialogue,” she says.

It would be absurd to suggest that any book could lead to any significant dilution of Jewish Israeli identity through intermarriage with Palestinians. The number of such unions in Israel is minuscule. Even the fictional characters in Borderlife meet outside Israel, and the relationship ends because Liat prioritizes returning home. The book’s threat, such that it is, arises from humanizing one’s enemy. “It might widen something that is being kept shut,” says Rabinyan.

If that prospect unnerves some in Israel’s education ministry, many Israelis seem open to it. Sales of Borderlife, already strong before this controversy, are surging. An English translation will be published this year. As for its exclusion from the Israeli high school curriculum, Rabinyan notes there is no more effective way to convince a teenager to read a book than by telling her she shouldn’t. When Rabinyan was young, she stole a David Grossman novel after a librarian told her she couldn’t borrow it because it supposedly wasn’t suited to someone her age.

Something similar might happen with Borderlife, which would suit Rabinyan fine. “I didn’t write the book to be taught,” she says. “I wrote it to be read.”

]]>JERUSALEM — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry set off an uproar in Israel on Sunday after warning that the country, through its continued West Bank occupation, will become a “binational state.”

Kerry’s words describe a scenario that would mark a failure of U.S. policy and end to Israel’s existence as a country that is both Jewish and democratic. The U.S., the international community and many Israelis have endorsed the “two-state solution” — establishing a Palestinian state and ending Israel’s control over millions of Palestinians in territories occupied in the 1967 war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday that “Israel will not be a binational state” and blamed the Palestinians for the failure of peace efforts. But despite Netanyahu’s pledges, Jewish settlement of the West Bank continues apace, while confusion over his true intentions grows by the day.

Meanwhile, Israel seems unable to stem a wave of stabbings and other attacks by Palestinian individuals, now in its third month, that has killed 19 Israelis and left over 100 Palestinians, most said by Israel to be attackers, dead.

This situation has sharpened the country’s half-century-old debate over the Palestinians. Opposition politicians, intellectuals and retired military commanders are issuing increasingly strident warnings that never-ending violence awaits if Israel continues to occupy millions of angry Palestinians who cannot vote in its national elections.

“If Israel were the Titanic and the binational apartheid state its iceberg … then the collision with the iceberg has already occurred,” wrote columnist Rogel Alpher in the Haaretz daily. “Without a diplomatic solution, we will continue to slowly sink into an existence of knifings, hatred and fear.”

Here’s a look at the potential “one-state” outcome:

THE ARGUMENT FOR PULLING OUT OF THE WEST BANK

Ever since Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt in 1967, the question of the territories’ fate has hung in the air.

Israel’s more dovish left wing has favoured a pullout from most of the areas, hoping this will bring Israel recognition and peace in the region. But over two decades of failed peace talks have convinced many a deal is not possible.

The left still favours a pullout, but the rationale has shifted to something more like nationalism: without a pullout, Israel would no longer be a Jewish-majority democracy because half of its population in effect will be Palestinians, most of them without true democratic rights.

That’s because while Israel proper — the area defined by 1949 cease-fire lines that ended the war surrounding Israel’s establishment — has roughly 6.3 million Jews and 1.7 million Palestinian citizens of Israel. Adding the West Bank and Gaza, demographers believe, would make the Arab and Jewish populations essentially equal.

A pullout from the West Bank is complicated by the presence of Jewish settlers, numbering 400,000 and growing. Eventually the situation may become irreversible, with the Palestinians abandoning efforts to set up their own state and instead demanding annexation and voting rights as citizens of a single “binational” state. Israelis who fear this scenario and see a future of internecine conflict, global economic boycotts and increasing isolation want a pullout now, from at least most of the West Bank, even without an agreement with the Palestinians.

“If the Israelis don’t hurry up to implement the two-state solution on the ground, they will lose,” said Ahmed Qurei, a longtime Palestinian negotiator.

THE ARGUMENT FOR NOT PULLING OUT OF THE WEST BANK

For some Jewish Israelis, the West Bank is literally the Promised Land — full of biblical places like Hebron, Jericho, Bethlehem and Shilo that must be kept as a birthright, whatever the consequences.

But this is a minority opinion, even among proponents of the occupation. The more common argument is rooted in security.

Without the West Bank, Israel would be about 15 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, with the West Bank looming over population centres and surrounding Jerusalem on three sides. Meanwhile, Islamic radicals are on the march across the region. Such Israelis imagine a future in which some version of the Islamic State group seizes control of the West Bank and launches daily attacks at Israel. They conclude that prudence requires holding onto the West Bank; the Palestinians must be satisfied with their autonomy zones set up under interim agreements in the 1990s.

THE IMPACT OF GAZA

Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 as part of a simple calculation: With the small but crowded territory neatly removed from the demographic equation, Jews still have a majority of some 60 per cent. But the Islamic militants of Hamas seized control of Gaza, periodically firing rockets at Israel and leading the sides to three mini-wars to date. Many Israelis fear the West Bank will face a similar fate if Israeli withdraws. Meanwhile, the Palestinians and much of the world consider Gaza to still be occupied, since Israel blockades it and controls the airspace and sea access in an effort to minimize Hamas’ ability to arm itself.

KEEP THE ARMY, REMOVE THE SETTLERS?

A paper published two weeks ago by a major Israeli think-tank proposed a new solution in which settlers would be pulled out of most of the West Bank to create a situation more amenable to partition. The army would maintain its current positions until a better alternative emerged. The authors — economist Avner Halevi and Gilead Sher, a former chief negotiator with the Palestinians — said this would require removing about 100,000 settlers, while others living close to Israel’s de facto border would remain pending a future negotiation. “The purpose of such a withdrawal would be to implement a temporary border that would create a reality of two nation-states,” Sher and Halevi wrote.

On Nov. 28, 1941, Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, sat down in Berlin for a meeting with Adolf Hitler. Their conversation, as described by University of Edinburgh historian David Motadel, who has written a book on Islam and the Nazis, was an “exchange of empty courtesies.”

According to the official German report of the meeting, Husseini told Hitler the Arabs and Germans shared the same enemies, namely the English, the Jews and Communists. He said the Arabs stood ready to help Hitler through acts of sabotage and the formation of an Arab legion. Husseini asked Hitler to make a public declaration that Germany supported Arab independence, as well as the elimination of the Jewish national home (in Palestine).

Hitler replied that he was committed to the destruction of the “Judeo-Communist empire” in Europe and would in due course bring that struggle to the Middle East, when he would tell the Arab world their hour of liberation had arrived. But he said he could not yet publicly declare support for Arab independence because doing so might intensify anti-German resistance among French opposed to the breakup of their Middle Eastern colonies.

The meeting ended. Husseini remained in Germany but never spoke with Hitler again. He requested a second meeting in 1943 and was rebuffed.

The mufti was a toadying anti-Semite, one of thousands who collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War. His direct role in the Holocaust, which was already well under way when he met with Hitler, was minor—limited, says Motadel, to his efforts to block the emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany’s southeastern satellite states to Palestine.

This isn’t the way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees it. Last month, he portrayed Husseini as the Holocaust’s architect, the man who convinced Hitler to “burn” the Jews. “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time; he wanted to expel the Jews,” Netanyahu said in a speech to the 37th Zionist Congress. “If you expel them, they’ll all come here,” he says Husseini told Hitler at their meeting in Berlin.

“So what should I do with them?” Hitler supposedly asked.

“Burn them,” Husseini replied, according to Netanyahu.

“Such a conversation never took place. It is invented,” Motadel said in an email interview with Maclean’s. Michael Marrus, a professor emeritus of Holocaust studies at the University of Toronto, said Netanyahu’s comments were “grossly inaccurate.” Christopher Browning, a professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, described them as “total fabrication . . . an outright lie.”

Netanyahu’s speech was all those things. Politicians distort all the time. But this was something different: the prime minister of a country that rose from the Holocaust’s ashes telling falsehoods about that tragedy for political ends. By doing so he has risked discrediting the government he leads, and eroding acceptance of the Holocaust’s established narrative. It’s an act that could reverberate beyond Israel to Europe, where the death camps and killing pits were located.

A visitor to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum emerges from the exhibits and from the shadows that permeate much of the museum’s interior to a light-filled balcony that looks out over Jerusalem. The architecture is symbolic. Jews have lived in what is now Israel for thousands of years. The Holocaust, nevertheless, is central to many Israelis’ sense of national identity.

“There is a sense that the Holocaust is one important justification for why we need a Jewish state, so that we can defend ourselves. Never again should we be victims,” says Meir Litvak, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Tel Aviv University. The Holocaust’s resonance in the Israeli psyche makes it a powerful rhetorical tool for politicians. Many have used it.

Abba Eban, when foreign minister after Israel’s victorious 1967 Six Day War, said Israel’s borders prior to the conflict reminded Jews of Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp. Netanyahu himself, more than once, used the Holocaust as a comparison point for the threat he believes Iran poses to Israel.

“I think Netanyahu’s world view is that Israel and the Jews are facing a continuous, unbroken threat to their existence. Basically, we are facing a new Hitler every generation. It was the Nazis, then the mufti, [former Egyptian president Gamal] Abdel Nasser, the Iranians, the Palestinians, etc.,” says Litvak.

Netanyahu’s most recent evocation of the Holocaust—made as Israel is gripped by a wave of stabbing attacks against Jews by Palestinians—may have been motivated by a desire to demonize the Palestinians by demonstrating that they wanted to kill Jews before the creation of the modern state of Israel, and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. “Basically, the Palestinians and the Nazis are one and the same, and it’s all part of a long continuum,” says Browning, referring to the argument he says Netanyahu is making.

“That’s why [Netanyahu believes] you can’t talk to these people [Palestinians]. You can’t negotiate with them. And you can’t sympathize with them. And you certainly can’t consider them victims, because the Holocaust is the ultimate victimization of Jews,” adds Browning. “Netanyahu is trying to play the Holocaust card to basically instrumentalize the Holocaust to deny any kind of recognition of whatever rights and grievances the Palestinians themselves might have.”

According to Litvak, Israelis are still traumatized by the Holocaust. “And I’m not saying it’s never used as a political weapon. It’s used everywhere. The question is how much do you distort?” he says.

Distortions and lies about the Holocaust are rife in Arab and Muslim countries. Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously described the murder of some six million Jews a “myth” and a “lie.” “There’s no education about the Holocaust, really, in the Arab world,” says Mehnaz Afridi, an assistant professor of religious studies at Manhattan College in New York.

Even where ignorance about the Holocaust is deeply rooted, falsehoods and denials about it also often serve political purposes. “Because if the world supported the Jews because of the Holocaust, and if you can prove there was no Holocaust, then Israel will lose its support,” says Litvak, co-author with Esther Webman of From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust.

Lies about the Holocaust might be expected from Israel’s worst enemies. But Holocaust falsehoods from Israel’s prime minister have their own damaging repercussions. “If Netanyahu is caught in a serious distortion, then his credibility as a leader, as a spokesman for Israel, is shaken seriously,” says Litvak. “I can imagine now anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers in the West who will take the first half of Netanyahu’s sentence—‘Hitler did not want to exterminate the Jews’—and they will use it. He undermined the credibility of any Israeli leader.”

More than a week after making his initial remarks, Netanyahu said he wished to “clarify” them, and said it was the Nazis who decided to embark on a campaign to exterminate Europe’s Jews. But the damage might not be easily reversible. Netanyahu gave an air of credibility to “fringe discourses” that conflate and link Islam and Nazism, says Stefan Ihrig, a historian at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.

Browning, who has testified as an expert witness at two Holocaust-denial trials, fears what might happen if he is called to do so again.“I know exactly what’s going to be thrown in my face,” he says. “ ‘Why can’t my [client] do it if the prime minister of Israel does it? Why is my guy being charged, and [Netanyahu] is elected prime minister of Israel?’ For someone who’s supposed to have the interests of the state of Israel at heart, this is extraordinarily self-destructive.”

There are potential repercussions beyond Israel as well. “Part and parcel of Holocaust denial is this motivation to deflect guilt away from Germany, and this is where Netanyahu has found strange partners in his rhetoric,” says Ihrig.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel quickly and unequivocally reiterated Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust following Netanyahu’s comments. But Europeans have not always readily acknowledged their historic role in the Holocaust. When they do, it can shape debates about current events—including the influx of refugees, many of whom are Arabs, into Europe.

“The Holocaust has become an event that allows Europeans to be critical of the present by considering the past. If the blame for the Holocaust can be directed away from Europeans toward others, then that capacity for self-criticism could weaken,” writes Timothy Snyder, author of Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, in a recent essay for CNN.

“As Arab refugees arrive in Europe, the crucial framing question is: Who is the victim here? When Europeans consider the history of the 1930s and 1940s, when Jews were forced to leave their homes and often found no shelter anywhere in Europe, they can see the Arabs as the victims. But if Europeans follow Netanyahu’s short circuit and blame the Holocaust on Arabs, then Europeans can see themselves as the victims.”

In the introduction to Black Earth, Snyder says the history of the Holocaust is not over. “Its precedent is eternal, and its lessons have not yet been learned,” he writes.

What those lessons are is open to debate—by historians, politicians and others. New ones will undoubtedly emerge with the passage of time. All of them depend on historical truth. All of us, but perhaps especially the prime minister of Israel, have an obligation to protect that.

OTTAWA — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered his congratulations to prime minister designate Justin Trudeau in a telephone call affirming the friendship of the two countries — even if it won’t always be shouted from Canada’s rooftops.

Rafael Barak, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, said the call from Netanyahu took place last Friday, and left his country assured that relations between Canada and the Jewish state will remain strong after the defeat of the Harper Conservatives on Oct. 19.

Harper faced much criticism for a Middle East policy that many analysts said tilted too much toward Israel, and gave short shrift to the Palestinians.

But Harper also built a very warm relationship of his own with Netanyahu, who regularly lauded his personal friend “Stephen” as a great friend to Israel.

Past Liberal governments have always had a pro-Israel foreign policy, but because of the vocal support of the Conservatives since 2006, some Israeli commentators have raised questions about whether the new Liberal majority government will still be as close to Israel.

Barak told The Canadian Press on Thursday that Trudeau also has a record of unwavering support for Israel.

“Mr. Trudeau has been very consistent from the very beginning of his campaign, in expressing his support for Israel,” said Barak.

“I’m sure maybe the style will change,” the envoy added. “But I don’t feel there will be a change on the substance. I’m really reassured.”

Trudeau also “explained there would be a shift in tone but Canada would continue to be a friend of Israel’s,” she added.

During the federal election campaign, Trudeau also said he would re-establish diplomatic relations with Iran, which Israel views as an existential threat.

Canada severed diplomatic relations with Iran, closing its embassy in Tehran and kicking Iranian diplomats out of Canada on Sept. 7, 2012, citing concerns over the safety of its diplomats, and calling Iran a threat to world peace.

At the time, Netanyahu called that “not only an act of statesmanship, but an act of moral clarity.”

Barak said if Trudeau follows through on re-establishing relations with Iran, it would not be damaging to relations with Israel.

“This is a Canadian issue . . . It is a domestic Canadian consideration of the security of their diplomats,” said Barak.

“On Iran, he has also been saying all the right things that Canada has been saying.”

Netanyahu has been a fierce critic of the landmark agreement reached in July with the U.S., Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany to monitor Iran’s nuclear energy activities.

After the deal was announced in July, the then Liberal foreign affairs critic Marc Garneau issued a statement on behalf of the party that said: “Iran must comply with the terms of this agreement and match its words with concrete deeds.”

That line was virtually the same as the Conservative talking point on the issue, which repeatedly stressed judging Tehran on its deeds, not its words.

The Middle East was raised briefly during the election campaign’s foreign policy debate in Toronto on Sept. 28, which gave Trudeau the opportunity to accuse Harper of using it as a wedge issue domestically.

“The issue of Israel, where we most disagree as Liberals with Mr. Harper, is that he has made support for Israel a domestic political football when all three of us support Israel and any Canadian government will,” Trudeau said.

Netanyahu also invited Trudeau to visit Israel.

“We hope that we will see him soon,” Barak said. “It was a very warm call.”

That isn’t likely to happen soon. Trudeau already has a full international schedule, packed with four multilateral summits in the coming weeks.

So far, he has committed to attending the Paris climate change conference in early December with a full delegation that includes the opposition party leaders and several provincial premiers.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/uncategorized/netanyahu-and-trudeau-hold-warm-phone-call/feed/0Netanyahu vows ‘strong hand’ against Palestinians throwing stones, firebombshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/netanyahu-vows-strong-hand-against-palestinians-throwing-stones-firebombs/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/netanyahu-vows-strong-hand-against-palestinians-throwing-stones-firebombs/#commentsMon, 05 Oct 2015 21:52:05 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=765459Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has sent thousands more soldiers and police to the West Bank and Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Monday that he will use a “strong hand” to quell violent Palestinian protests and deadly attacks, signalling that the current round of violence is bound to escalate at a time when a political solution to the conflict is increasingly distant.

Netanyahu said he has sent thousands more soldiers and police to the West Bank and Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem and that “we are allowing our forces to take strong action against those who throw rocks and firebombs.” He said restrictions limiting what security forces can do were being lifted, but did not elaborate.

Netanyahu’s warnings came after a rash of violence that began Thursday when Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli couple in their car near a settlement in the West Bank as their four children watched. Two days later, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli man to death and seriously wounded his wife as they walked in Jerusalem’s Old City, then attacked and killed another Israeli man.

Israeli forces, meanwhile, killed two suspected Palestinian assailants over the weekend and on Monday shot dead two teenage stone-throwers, one of them a 13-year-old boy, in West Bank clashes.

In all, eight Palestinians were wounded by live fire and 45 by rubber-coated steel pellets in the West Bank and Jerusalem on Monday, the Red Crescent said.

The spike in attacks and clashes comes at a time of mounting Palestinian frustration.

After years of diplomatic paralysis, many have lost hope in the chance of setting up a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in 1967.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has not offered an alternative to failed negotiations, except to urge the international community to intervene, so far to little avail. President Barack Obama made no mention of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly last week, an omission noted by the Palestinians.

Netanyahu has repeatedly accused Abbas of inciting the violence and of having no interest in negotiating a peace deal. Abbas has countered that Netanyahu is acting in bad faith by promoting continued settlement expansion on territory Palestinians claim for their future state.

Tensions have also risen over a major Jerusalem shrine that is sacred to Muslims and Jews and is key to the rival national narratives of the two sides. Many Palestinians believe that Israel is trying to expand a Jewish presence at the site, a claim Netanyahu has denied. The hilltop compound is revered by Muslims as the spot where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven and by Jews as the site of the two Jewish biblical Temples.

There have been several days of clashes at the site over the past few weeks as Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa mosque while hurling stones, firebombs and fireworks at police. The unrest later spread to Arab neighbourhoods of east Jerusalem and to the West Bank.

Netanyahu convened his Security Cabinet, a group of key ministers, at the end of a two-day Jewish holiday Monday evening.

“We are acting with a strong hand against terrorism and against inciters,” he said before the meeting. “We are operating on all fronts. We have brought an additional four … battalions into Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and thousands of police into Jerusalem.”

He pledged an unprecedented crackdown, saying police had moved deeper into Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem than in the past.

He again accused the Palestinian leadership of incitement, lumping Abbas with the Palestinian leader’s main domestic rival, the Islamic militant Hamas.

Despite Netanyahu’s warning about a lifting of restrictions on security forces, an Israeli army spokesman, Lt. Maj. Peter Lerner, said there was no change in troops’ open fire-rules.

Meanwhile, Abbas convened his security commanders late Monday, telling them they must try to prevent what he described as an Israeli attempt to drag the Palestinians into violence, according to an official statement.

The latest unrest has put Abbas in a difficult position, said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member in the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“He does not condone violence and he will not allow violence, but at the same time, people are really pushed beyond endurance,” she said.

The military and the Shin Bet security service said Monday that Israeli forces arrested five Palestinian suspects in the killing of the settler couple last week. The U.S. State Department said Monday one of the victims, Eitam Henkin, held dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship. An army statement said the suspects were affiliated with Hamas in the West Bank city of Nablus.

The statement said one of the assailants was accidentally shot and wounded by his colleagues and dropped his pistol. The group fled to Nablus, leaving behind the weapon.

Israel TV’s Channel 10 said Israeli undercover forces later raided a Nablus hospital and seized the wounded man. The channel showed CCTV footage of the raid, including men in civilian clothes running along a hallway.

In Nablus, relatives of the man taken from the hospital said he was seized before dawn Sunday. They identified him as 23-year-old Karam al-Masri.

“We have no idea if he was or not in the attack but we are concerned about his health because his injury is serious, according to doctors,” said an uncle, Ayman al-Masri.

Earlier Monday, confrontations erupted in the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem, and in the northern town of Tulkarem.

In Bethlehem, stone-throwers clashed with Israeli troops near Rachel’s Tomb, a frequent flashpoint near where Israel’s separation barrier juts into the city.

A doctor at a nearby hospital said 13-year-old, Abdel Rahman Shadi died after being hit by a live bullet to the chest while another Palestinian protester was wounded.

The Israeli military said dozens of Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli soldiers near the site. Troops initially fired tear gas and then responded with live rounds, the army said.

In Tulkarem, an 18-year-old Palestinian, Huthaifa Suleiman, was killed by live fire, according to the doctor there. Both doctors spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Hamas said Suleiman was a member of the group.

The military said hundreds of Palestinians threw firebombs and rocks at soldiers, and rolled burning tires toward them in the Tulkarem clash. The army said troops fired tear gas, stun grenades and then live rounds.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/netanyahu-vows-strong-hand-against-palestinians-throwing-stones-firebombs/feed/1Israeli archaeologists say they may have found fabled tomb of biblical Maccabeeshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israeli-archaeologists-say-they-may-have-found-fabled-tomb-of-biblical-maccabees/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israeli-archaeologists-say-they-may-have-found-fabled-tomb-of-biblical-maccabees/#commentsMon, 21 Sep 2015 20:53:46 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=758953Israel government says an ancient structure it began excavating this month appears to match ancient descriptions of the tomb of Jewish rebels

]]>BEN SHEMEN FOREST, Israel — Israeli archaeologists may be one step closer to solving a riddle that has vexed explorers for more than a century: the location of the fabled tomb of the biblical Maccabees.

Israel’s government Antiquities Authority said Monday that an ancient structure it began excavating this month on the side of a highway appears to match ancient descriptions of the tomb of Jewish rebels who wrested control of Judea from Seleucid rule and established a Jewish kingdom in the 2nd century B.C.

Scholars in Israel’s quarrelsome archaeological community tend to agree that the site, in an Israeli forest west of Jerusalem and a short walk from the West Bank, is a significant burial site but reserve judgment about its connection to the Maccabees. Now the Antiquities Authority, which sometimes relies on private funding to help finance digs, is soliciting donations so it can keep searching for evidence.

“We still don’t have the smoking gun,” said Amit Reem, a government archaeologist who helped lead the dig.

The Maccabees are considered heroes in both Judaism and Christianity. The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah commemorates Mattathias and his five sons who revolted against Hellenic rulers who banned Jewish practices, and rededicated the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. The biblical Books of the Maccabees, which include a tale of Jewish martyrs dying for their faith, are a source of inspiration in some Christian traditions.

In the late 1880s, a succession of European explorers went searching for the tomb. They were drawn to a barren area near the West Bank village of Midya, a name that resembles Modiin, the ancient town where the biblical account says the Maccabee family was buried.

Arab villagers pointed one European explorer toward a hilltop dotted with rock-hewn graves known by locals as “the graves of the Jews.” Archaeologists today say these cannot be the graves of the Maccabees, but Israeli road signs still label them as such and Hanukkah ceremonies are held there to honour the ancient rebels.

Another 19th-century explorer was drawn to a nearby Arab tomb, where he announced that he found the remains of Mattathias. Archaeologists say the small domed structure has no connection to the elder Maccabee, but a modern tombstone engraved in Hebrew marks it as his burial site. Today, candles and Jewish prayer pamphlets are strewn about.

“It was more wishful thinking than hardcore archaeological evidence,” Reem said about the European explorers’ discoveries.

It is a third spot, just a few paces away from the domed structure, that captures Israeli archaeologists’ imaginations. French scholar Charles Clermont-Ganneau first excavated it in the late 1800s and found a mosaic floor featuring a Byzantine Christian cross. The site was then abandoned. This month, Israeli archaeologists and volunteers cleared away rubble and exposed the simple mosaic cross for the first time in more than 100 years.

Reem said the cross is a clue. It appears on the floor of a burial niche at the site. It is the only Byzantine-era site where a cross decorates the floor of a burial vault, he said, indicating that it may have marked the spot of an important figure. He thinks it is likely that the Byzantines _ early Christians _ identified this site as the Maccabees’ tomb.

“What other important figures would be here?” Reem said, standing in the deep pit of the archaeological site.

Oren Tal, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University who was not involved with the dig, said the mosaic cross is not necessarily a significant clue. He said the burial niche may have been converted into a Byzantine chapel, where a cross would have been standard.

But he agreed with Reem about other characteristics that correspond to the biblical account and to an account by ancient historian Josephus Flavius. Both describe the Tomb of the Maccabees as a tall structure that could be seen from the Mediterranean Sea, featuring columns and seven pyramids.

Reem says four thick column bases found at the site may be indications that the structure was once 5 metres (over 15 feet) tall, and large rock slabs Clermont-Ganneau said he found — which have since gone missing from the site — could have been the bases of pyramid decorations. Before a forest was planted in the area, it had a direct line of sight to the sea.

Reem said he cannot yet date the site to earlier than the 5th century A.D. He wants to excavate more, to look for an inscription or architectural elements that could associate the structure with the time of the Maccabees.

For the past decade, he said, finding the tomb has been his personal holy grail.

“It (is) crucial for everybody … to solve once and for all this riddle,” he said.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israeli-archaeologists-say-they-may-have-found-fabled-tomb-of-biblical-maccabees/feed/1Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert sentenced to prison in corruption trialhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/former-israeli-pm-ehud-olmert-sentenced-to-prison-in-corruption-trial/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/former-israeli-pm-ehud-olmert-sentenced-to-prison-in-corruption-trial/#respondMon, 25 May 2015 13:20:06 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=722335Sentence caps dramatic downfall of a man who only years earlier hoped to bring about a historic peace agreement with the Palestinians

]]>JERUSALEM — Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced Monday to eight months in prison for unlawfully accepting money from a U.S. supporter, capping the dramatic downfall of a man who only years earlier led the country and hoped to bring about a historic peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Olmert was convicted in March in a retrial in Jerusalem District Court. The sentencing comes in addition to a six-year prison sentence he received last year in a separate bribery conviction, ensuring the end of the former premier’s political career.

Olmert’s lawyer, Eyal Rozovsky, said Olmert’s legal team was “very disappointed” by the ruling and would appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court. They were granted a 45-day stay, meaning the former Israeli leader will avoid incarceration for now.

Olmert also was given a suspended sentence of an additional eight months and fined $25,000.

A slew of character witnesses had vouched for Olmert, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan in written statements read aloud Monday. The verdict stated that it recognized Olmert’s vast contributions to Israeli society and sentenced him to less than the prosecution had demanded. Still, it ruled that “a black flag hovers over his conduct.”

Olmert was forced to resign in early 2009 amid the corruption allegations. His departure cleared the way for hard-liner Benjamin Netanyahu’s election, and subsequent Mideast peace efforts have not succeeded.

Olmert, 69, was acquitted in 2012 of a series of charges that included accepting cash-stuffed envelopes from U.S. businessman Morris Talansky when Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and a Cabinet minister. Olmert was found to have received about $600,000 from Talansky during his term as mayor, and additional amounts in cash during his term as a Cabinet minister, but a court did not find evidence the money had been used for unlawful personal reasons or illegal campaign financing.

Talansky, an Orthodox Jew from New York’s Long Island, had testified the money was spent on expensive cigars, first-class travel and luxury hotels, while insisting he received nothing in return.

The acquittal on the most serious charges at the time was seen as a major victory for Olmert, who denied being corrupt. He was convicted only on a lesser charge of breach of trust for steering job appointments and contracts to clients of a business partner, and it raised hopes for his political comeback.

But Olmert’s former office manager and confidant Shula Zaken later became a state’s witness, offering diary entries and tape recordings of conversations with Olmert about illicitly receiving cash, leading to a retrial. In the recordings, Olmert is heard telling Zaken not to testify in the first trial so she would not incriminate him.

The judges concluded that Olmert gave Zaken part of the money in exchange for her loyalty, and used the money for his own personal use without reporting it according to law. They convicted him on a serious charge of illicitly receiving money, as well as charges of fraud and breach of trust.

In a separate trial in March 2014, Olmert was convicted of bribery over a Jerusalem real estate scandal and was sentenced to six years in prison. He appealed and has been allowed to stay out of prison until a verdict is delivered.

At the time Olmert resigned as prime minister, Israel and the Palestinians had been engaged in more than a year of intense negotiations over the terms of Palestinian independence. The Palestinians seek all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, in addition to the Gaza Strip, for an independent state. Israel occupied the three areas in the 1967 Mideast war, though it withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Since leaving office, Olmert has said he presented the Palestinians the most generous Israeli proposal in history, offering roughly 95 per cent of the West Bank, along with a land swap covering the remaining 5 per cent of territory. In addition, he proposed international administration in east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive religious sites.

Palestinian officials have said that while progress was made, Olmert’s assessment was overly optimistic.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/former-israeli-pm-ehud-olmert-sentenced-to-prison-in-corruption-trial/feed/0Netanyahu forms new Israeli government just ahead of deadlinehttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/netanyahu-forms-new-israeli-government-just-ahead-of-deadline/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/netanyahu-forms-new-israeli-government-just-ahead-of-deadline/#respondThu, 07 May 2015 09:11:03 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=716725Netanyahu's Likud party formed a coalition with the far right Jewish Home party, which opposes peace moves toward the Palestinians

]]>JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday completed the formation of a new coalition government, reaching a last-minute deal with a nationalist party just before a midnight deadline.

The late-night deal saved Netanyahu from the unthinkable scenario of being forced from office. But it set the stage for the formation of a narrow coalition dominated by hard-line and religious parties that appears to be on a collision course with the U.S. and other allies.

With a slim majority of just 61 seats in the 120-seat parliament, Netanyahu could also struggle to press forward with a domestic agenda.

After Netanyahu’s Likud Party won March 17 elections with 30 seats, it seemed he would have a relatively easy time forming a coalition. But during a six-week negotiating process, the task turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated, as rival coalition partners and members of the Likud jockeyed for influential Cabinet ministries.

The talks stalled this week when Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a longtime partner of Netanyahu’s, unexpectedly stepped down and announced his secular nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party was joining the opposition.

That left Netanyahu dependent on Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett, a former aide who has a rocky relationship with Netanyahu. The talks with Bennett stretched throughout the day and well into the night before Netanyahu called President Reuven Rivlin, as required by law, to announce the deal.

Netanyahu had until midnight to speak to Rivlin. Otherwise, the president would have been required to ask another politician to try to form a government.

The Jewish Home party is linked to the West Bank settler movement. It opposes peace moves toward the Palestinians and has pushed for increased settlement construction on occupied lands – a policy that is opposed by the U.S. and European countries.

His other partners include Kulanu, a centrist party focused on economic issues, and two ultra-Orthodox religious parties.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/netanyahu-forms-new-israeli-government-just-ahead-of-deadline/feed/0Despite peace-deal framework, Israel says military action against Iran still an optionhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/despite-peace-deal-framework-israel-says-military-action-against-iran-still-an-option/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/despite-peace-deal-framework-israel-says-military-action-against-iran-still-an-option/#commentsMon, 06 Apr 2015 19:19:50 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=703139Israel's minister for strategic affairs reflected the alarm in Israel over deal which offers Iran relief from sanctions for scale-backs of its nuclear program

]]>JERUSALEM — A senior Israeli government minister on Monday warned that taking military action against Iran’s nuclear program is still an option — despite last week’s framework deal between world powers and the Islamic Republic.

The comments by Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, reflected the alarm in Israel over last week’s deal, which offers Iran relief from economic sanctions in exchange for scaling back its suspect nuclear program. Israeli leaders believe the framework leaves too much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact and could still allow it to develop the means to produce a nuclear weapon.

Steinitz, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s, said the government would spend the coming months lobbying the world powers negotiating with Iran to strengthen the language in the deal as they hammer out a final agreement. While stressing that Israel prefers a diplomatic solution, he said the “military option” still exists.

“It was on the table. It’s still on the table. It’s going to remain on the table,” Steinitz told reporters. “Israel should be able to defend itself, by itself, against any threat. And it’s our right and duty to decide how to defend ourselves, especially if our national security and even very existence is under threat.”

Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran to be a threat to its survival, pointing to years of Iranian calls for Israel’s destruction, its support for anti-Israeli militant groups and its development of long-range ballistic missiles that could be armed with nuclear warheads. Israel — which is widely believed to be a nuclear power — says a nuclear-armed Iran would set off an arms race in the world’s most volatile region.

The framework agreement was announced last Thursday in Switzerland after years of negotiations between Iran and world powers.

The deal aims to cut significantly into Iran’s bomb-making technology while giving Tehran relief from international sanctions. The commitments, if implemented, would substantially pare down Iranian nuclear assets for a decade and restrict others for an additional five years. Iran would also be subject to intrusive international inspections.

Netanyahu believes the deal leaves intact too much of Iran’s suspect nuclear program, including research facilities and advanced centrifuges capable of enriching uranium, a key ingredient in a bomb. He also says the deal fails to address Iran’s support for militant groups across the Middle East.

Since the deal was announced, Washington has tried to calm Israeli nerves and on Monday, White House official Ben Rhoads gave a pair of televised interviews promising continued U.S. support for Israeli security.

Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, told Channel 2 TV that sanctions will be “snapped back into place if the Iranians don’t comply.”

“There are significant limitations on the nuclear program and with inspections if they break the deal we will know very quickly and then we will be able to make decisions about what to do,” he said.

When asked if a military strike was still an option during the implementation stage of the agreement, Rhodes said: “We believe its best frankly if we don’t have to exercise that option and Iran complies with this type of good comprehensive deal, but certainly if there was a violation we would have all options to consider in response to a violation.”

Steinitz said Monday that Israel has drawn up a list of 10 issues Israel wants addressed in the final agreement.

The list includes a halt to “research and development” with advanced centrifuges, a reduction in the number of earlier-generation centrifuges that will be allowed to operate, and the complete closure of the underground Fordo nuclear research site.

Under the outlines in Switzerland, Iran has agreed to halt enrichment activities there but the site will be allowed to continue research, and some centrifuges will remain.

Israel also wants Iran “to come clean” about its past efforts on developing nuclear weapons, stronger assurances on how its stockpile of enriched uranium will be removed, and wants clarity on when sanctions on Iran will be lifted and how quickly they could be re-imposed.

Steinitz said Israel will lobby the world powers — the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany — to amend the final version of the deal ahead of a June 30 deadline. He said Israel still hopes the final deal can be improved.

“It might become a much better deal and a more comprehensive and trusted deal than it is today. This is a bad deal,” Steinitz said.

Netanyahu has warned of the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran for years, but after the Switzerland announcement, it remains unclear how much of an impact he could have on the final negotiations.

Reminding the world of the military option is one way to gain some leverage — many in Israel believe that Israeli threats to strike Iran’s nuclear installations several years ago helped trigger international sanctions and the dialogue that led to last Thursday’s framework deal.

Questions also remain on Israel’s military option. A long-range aerial mission would be dangerous and could trigger retaliation from Iran or its various proxies across the region. It also remains unclear how much damage it could inflict on a program that is spread out and in some cases, hidden underground.

President Barack Obama has said any military attack would only set back Iran by a few years.

Ronen Bergman, an Israeli military-affairs commentator, said Israel would have to produce clear intelligence showing that Iran has resumed a military nuclear program before striking.

“If Israel decides to attack — that evidence will be what will probably save it from international isolation,” Bergman wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/despite-peace-deal-framework-israel-says-military-action-against-iran-still-an-option/feed/2Palestinians to join International Criminal Court todayhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/palestinians-to-join-international-criminal-court-today/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/palestinians-to-join-international-criminal-court-today/#respondWed, 01 Apr 2015 09:42:57 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=701121The Palestinians want to pursue war crimes against Israel, and for the U.N. to set a deadline for an Israeli troop withdrawal

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territory – The Palestinians formally joined the International Criminal Court on Wednesday, as part of a broader effort to put international pressure on Israel and exact a higher price for its occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state.

Beyond seeking war crimes charges against Israel at the court, the Palestinians want the U.N. Security Council to set a deadline for an Israeli troop withdrawal and hope for new momentum of a Palestinian-led international movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions.

The atmosphere seems ripe for international intervention after recently re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu startled the world with a pledge to voters, since withdrawn, that he would not allow a Palestinian state to be established.

But a legal and diplomatic showdown isn’t inevitable as aides say Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas isn’t interested in an all-out confrontation with Israel. War crimes charges against Israel could be years away and Washington likely will soften any Security Council resolution on Palestinian statehood.

Here is a look at what’s expected:

THE COURT

Attempting to lower expectations among Palestinians of speedy court action, Malki told the Voice of Palestine radio Wednesday: “I don’t want to disappoint our people, but the ICC procedures are slow and long and might face lots of obstacles and challenges and might take years.”

Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda already launched a preliminary review to determine if there are grounds for an investigation of possible war crimes in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem – lands captured by Israel in 1967 and recognized by the U.N. General Assembly in 2012 as the “state of Palestine.”

A senior Palestinian official said the Palestinians will wait for the outcome of that review – which can take months or years – before considering further action. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Palestinian strategy.

Earlier this year, the Palestinians accepted the court’s jurisdiction dating back to June 2014, to ensure that last summer’s Gaza war between Israel and the militant group Hamas will be included in any review.

The Palestinians suffered heavy civilian casualties in the war, prompting allegations by some rights groups that Israel committed war crimes. Hamas, which rules Gaza, is also exposed to war crimes charges because it fired rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian areas.

Israel’s settlement construction, deemed illegal by much of the world, is also bound to be examined by the prosecutor. Since 1967, Israel has moved more than 550,000 of its civilians to occupied lands.

Palestine’s court membership could help shift focus to settlements as a legal and not just a political issue, said Alex Whiting, a former official in the international prosecutor’s office.

Israel and Palestine also will have to show that they are looking into possible war crimes on their own _ a shield against ICC involvement if deemed credible. Israel says it’s investigating alleged violations by its troops in Gaza. Hamas is not investigating its actions, claiming rocket attacks were self-defence.

THE U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL

France is working on a Security Council resolution that would set the parameters for a Palestinian statehood deal. The draft would define the pre-1967 frontier as a reference point for border talks, designate Jerusalem as a capital of two states and call for a fair solution for Palestinian refugees.

Last year, the council rejected a Palestinian resolution demanding an end to Israeli occupation within three years. The U.S. opposed that draft, saying Palestinian statehood can only be achieved through negotiations, but didn’t have to use its veto.

French diplomats now say they are working on a new draft with their allies, including the U.S., to ensure broad support. A resolution could be introduced later this month.

The U.S. said after Netanyahu’s comments on Palestinian statehood that it would re-evaluate its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a possible sign that Washington would no longer shield Israel in the Security Council.

Israel opposes imposed parameters for negotiations, but Palestinians are also skeptical.

They want internationally backed ground rules, after Netanyahu rejected the pre-1967 lines as a starting point. However, they also fear they’ll get a resolution that lacks enforceable deadlines and instead introduces the definition of Israel as a Jewish state. Abbas opposes such wording as a threat to the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees.

BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS

Organizers said they expect Netanyahu’s re-election will galvanize support for the 10-year-old Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

BDS activists promote different objectives, with some focusing on a boycott of the settlements and others saying everything Israeli must be shunned until Israel withdraws from occupied lands.

The movement has scored recent successes, including some European businesses and pension funds cutting investments or trade with Israeli firms connected to West Bank settlements.

Nahshon, the Israeli official, dismissed BDS campaigners as a small group driven by anti-Semitism and “a wish to destroy” Israel.

THE WAY FORWARD

Instead of a dramatic Israeli-Palestinian showdown, continued paralysis appears more likely.

Netanyahu and Abbas have signalled that they don’t want strained relations to break down.

Israel initially punished Abbas for seeking court membership, freezing monthly transfers of more than $100 million it collects for the Palestinians. Israel resumed the transfers after three months amid warnings that a continued freeze could bring down Abbas’ government.

Abbas has indicated he won’t end security co-ordination between his forces and Israeli troops in the West Bank that is aimed at shared foe Hamas.

Abbas also told senior PLO officials in March he remains committed to negotiations and would go along with the idea of an international peace conference, proposed by France, “despite low expectations.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/palestinians-to-join-international-criminal-court-today/feed/0Amiel: A land for peace? Come off it.http://www.macleans.ca/politics/a-land-for-peace-come-off-it/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/a-land-for-peace-come-off-it/#commentsFri, 27 Mar 2015 13:42:28 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=697753Barbara Amiel on Israel's elections and the brilliance of Bibi

In last week’s elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu won big at the expense of his allies, particularly Naftali Bennett’s religious Zionist party Bayit Yehudi. Instead of trying to steal votes from the left-wing opposition or woo undecideds with soft policies to demonstrate flexibility, Bibi made a brilliant and unexpected ruse to the right. This weakened his prospective coalition hard-liners, putting him in better shape to make a peace agreement should the Saudis and Egyptians manage to kick Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas into genuine negotiations—something a politically weak Abbas has avoided so far. Bibi’s rhetoric and campaigning convinced Israel’s fractious right-wing parties that the election was important and must not be lost. Winning in politics is everything, nothing else counts. Policy details generally come later.

The election was a total defeat for U.S. President Obama, who continues his extended public hissy fit. After all, he, Barack Obama, had given Bibi the benefit of his own extraordinary insight into the Middle East—an insight which has grown and grown ever since his wonderful Cairo speech in 2009. That speech praised the contributions of the Middle East’s version of Islam for nearly 60 minutes while conveniently overlooking such problems as the absence of free speech and religious tolerance, the persecution of gays, the mutilation and oppression of women and the culture of public floggings and beheadings. Obama did admit that Islam had some issues with “the struggle for female rights” but so, said Obama, did America. A week after the speech, when the popular uprising in Iran began against the rigged election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, America offered no help.

Bibi’s statement that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch is not news to anyone who has been watching the Arab world for the past 24 years. Bibi commits himself to nothing by saying that the empty pantomime of the past decades—since the 1991 peace conference in Madrid—is over. “Land for peace” was the slogan of Madrid and then Oslo and Wye River, and it was all fake. When the Arabs had that land—the West Bank and Gaza—they gave Israel no peace, only the 1967 war, which is how they lost the land. When Israel gave the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt, they got a cold peace. When Israel gave back Gaza to the Palestinians, they got a terrorist Gaza heaving thousands of rockets at them. Land for peace? Come off it. Peace can only be made when both sides want it. In fact, the Palestinians have been refusing a state since 1948, when the UN gave them one. What has stopped the creation of a Palestinian state every time is the Arab refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state—either specifically or by demanding the right of return that would eliminate Israel demographically. Netanyahu will not play that game anymore and nor should any Israeli or Western leader.

By now, Netanyahu should have known that you never put your inner thoughts online. Most political leaders rally troops on election day by inflaming worries about opposition turnout—busing in Hispanic and evangelical and working-class white voters etc.—and I can’t see anything wrong in Bibi posting on Facebook that “the Arabs are voting in droves” but let’s get real here. Barack Obama’s crocodile tears over this “divisive rhetoric” is something coming from a U.S. President whose words have inflamed race relations in America like no other modern president. Obama’s rhetoric about the rich has revitalized the class divide. And, btw, where else in the Middle East can you say “the Jews are voting in droves”? The Arabs have 13 seats in the Knesset, they are the third-largest party out of 10 in the Parliament. The Israeli Supreme Court has an Arab member (Salim Joubran, who upheld the ruling against Likud for racist advertisements in 2013 elections, sat in judgment of a former Israeli president and is the chairman of the 2015 election committee). There are prominent Arabs in every aspect of Israeli life and while they are still not treated fairly and equally in municipal services and housing, that is improving. In Israel, Arabs can and do serve in the Israeli Defense Forces.

The United States is run by a President who is either naive, egomaniacal or evil. He appears to believe that “reaching out” to Iran—which, if successful, will speed up Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons—will be his great legacy. A more likely scenario has Bibi playing a blinder: Israel will ignore Washington and plan massive bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities; Egypt and Saudi Arabia will tell Iran this has their tacit support—the Saudis are reported to have already given Israeli planes refuelling rights—unless Iran stops its nuclear program. Egypt and Syria will tell Abbas to stop playing footsie with terrorists and get serious about peace negotiations. Iran understands that in return for stopping nuclear buildup, they will get some credit for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. It’s convoluted and mad but it’s the souk, the Middle East, where nothing is as it seems.

Meanwhile, the West should understand—when dealing with leaders who are moored in the Middle Ages and have nothing in common with the 21st century except some military technology—that we cannot hope for civilized solutions. Primitive, barbaric, tribal hatreds are not the only spirits in that region, and within Middle Eastern societies are intelligent, decent and civilized Muslims—but the leitmotif that wags the tail of this dog belongs to the 12th century. The Jewish state’s dream of curing infant mortality and working alongside Arabs to turn the desert green won’t work with ISIS, Hezbollah or Hamas. The West has lost all strength except military strength, which only goes to show that sophisticated weapons without the backing of strong values are very limited if not useless.

Last week, the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women named Israel as the No. 1 violator of women’s rights among its 193 members. Not Sudan, where the legal age for female marriage is 10 with no minimal age for “consensual sex.” Not Iran, where female “adultery” is punishable by stoning and so on. Western funds maintain the UN. We ought to leave it and build a new alliance based on democratic values. You can’t have plenary sessions, co-exist or negotiate with barbarians; you can only totally isolate or destroy them at tremendous cost. Benjamin Netanyahu knows that and deserves support rather than reflexive carping from the cheap seats.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/a-land-for-peace-come-off-it/feed/11Netanyahu’s Likud wins Israeli electionhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/netanyahus-likud-wins-israeli-election/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/netanyahus-likud-wins-israeli-election/#commentsWed, 18 Mar 2015 09:42:25 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=694573Even before the final results were known, Netanyahu declared victory and pledged to form a new government quickly

TEL AVIV, Israel – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party scored a resounding victory in the country’s election, final results showed Wednesday, a stunning turnaround after a tight race that had put his lengthy rule in jeopardy.

With nearly all the votes counted, Likud appeared to have earned 30 out of parliament’s 120 seats and was in a position to build with relative ease a coalition government with its nationalist, religious and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies. Such a government would likely put Israel at odds with the international community over Palestinian statehood and continue to clash with the White House over hard-line policies.

The election was widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu, who has governed the country for the past six years. Recent opinion polls indicated he was in trouble, giving chief rival Isaac Herzog of the opposition Zionist Union a slight lead. Exit polls Tuesday showed the two sides deadlocked but once the actual results came pouring in early Wednesday, Likud soared forward. Zionist Union wound up with just 24 seats.

Even before the final results were known, Netanyahu declared victory and pledged to form a new government quickly.

“Against all odds, we achieved a great victory for the Likud,” Netanyahu told supporters at his election night headquarters. “I am proud of the people of Israel, who in the moment of truth knew how to distinguish between what is important and what is peripheral, and to insist on what is important.”

Netanyahu focused his campaign primarily on security issues, while his opponents instead pledged to address the country’s high cost of living and accused the leader of being out of touch with everyday people. Netanyahu will likely look to battle that image by adding to his government Moshe Kahlon, whose upstart Kulanu party captured 10 seats with a campaign focused almost entirely on bread-and-butter economic issues. Kahlon is expected to become the country’s next finance minister.

A union of four largely Arab-backed factions became Israel’s third largest party – with 14 seats – and gave Israel’s Arab minority significant leverage in parliament for the first time.

Herzog, who appeared poised only days ago to stage a coup, conceded defeat, saying that he called Netanyahu and offered him congratulations. He signalled that he would not join forces with Netanyahu and would rather head to the opposition.

“I think that at this moment what Israel needs most of all is another voice, a voice that offers an alternative and a voice that tells it the truth,” he said outside his Tel Aviv home.

Netanyahu’s return to power for a fourth term likely spells trouble for Mideast peace efforts and could further escalate tensions with the United States.

Netanyahu, who already has a testy relationship with President Barack Obama, took a sharp turn to the right in the final days of the campaign, staking out a series of hard-line positions that will put him on a collision course with much of the international community.

In a dramatic policy reversal, he said he now opposes the creation of a Palestinian state – a key policy goal of the White House and the international community. He also promised to expand construction in Jewish areas of east Jerusalem, the section of the city claimed by the Palestinians as their capital.

The Palestinians, fed up after years of deadlock with Netanyahu, are now likely to press ahead with their attempts to bring war crimes charges against Israel in the International Criminal Court. Renewed violence could also loom.

Netanyahu infuriated the White House early this month when he delivered a speech to the U.S. Congress criticizing an emerging nuclear deal with Iran. The speech was arranged with Republican leaders and not co-ordinated with the White House ahead of time.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was confident strong U.S.-Israeli ties would endure far beyond the election, regardless of the victor.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/netanyahus-likud-wins-israeli-election/feed/7Israel thanks Canada for help in gaining greater UN engagementhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/israel-thanks-canada-for-help-in-gaining-greater-un-engagement/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/israel-thanks-canada-for-help-in-gaining-greater-un-engagement/#respondTue, 17 Mar 2015 09:37:07 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=694171The country's ambassador says Canada's assistance means his country will be able to purse a temporary seat on the Security Council

]]>OTTAWA – On the eve of its hotly contested national election, Israel says it owes Canada a round of thanks for helping it gain greater acceptance within the United Nations.

Rafael Barak, the Israeli ambassador to Canada, says the Harper government was instrumental in helping Israel gain entry to the UN’s group of western nations in Geneva a little over a year ago.

The UN is divided into regional groups, but Israel was barred from the Asian group, its logical geographical fit, because some Arab and Muslim countries blocked its membership.

Having membership in a group is significant because without it a country can’t run for seats on UN bodies such as the Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, or the powerful Security Council.

Barak says Canada’s assistance means his country will be able to purse its dream of running for a temporary seat on the Security Council, a first for Israel.

It also increases Israel’s ability to defend its interests in the UN against the 20 or so annual resolutions that come before the General Assembly condemning his country, he said in an interview.

Israel will also be able to participate in the Human Rights Council, which has been highly critical of Israel and is currently investigating the conduct of the Israeli military during last summer’s 50-day war in Gaza.

“We were, in a way, in limbo,” Barak said in an interview.

“We don’t want to be a one-issue country, dealing only with our political constraints,” he added, referring to the yearly resolutions his country must confront at the UN.

Canada, along with Australia, is also a member of the so-called Western European and Others Group.

“They think we should be a player in an international forum and the multilateral community … so this makes a difference,” he said.

“We are very, very thankful to Canada.”

It is no surprise that Canada would help Israel, given that the Harper government has moved closer to the Jewish state than any previous government.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not a huge fan of the UN, having criticized the organization, including the Human Rights Council, for singling out Israel for criticism while ignoring other countries with more dubious records.

In his speech to the Israeli parliament 14 months ago, Harper welcomed Israel’s newly won membership in the western group, which had just occurred.

“Canada believes that Israel should be able to exercise its full rights as a UN member-state and to enjoy the full measure of its sovereignty,” the prime minister said.

Barak said Israel is not “always happy about the way they treat us” but his country wants to do “positive things for humanity” in the UN.

Israel will formally present its candidacy in 2017 for a temporary two-year stint on the Security Council for 2019-20, he said.

Israel will compete for one of two seats against Germany and Belgium. It’s a race that Canada lost in 2010 to Portugal, which upset Canada.

Many pundits suggested Canada’s close ties with Israel cost it much-needed votes among Arab and Muslim countries.

Barak said his country will fight a real campaign for the seat. “We’ll be working hard all over the world.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/israel-thanks-canada-for-help-in-gaining-greater-un-engagement/feed/0Netanyahu: Israel will not cede territory to Palestinians in current Mideast climatehttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/netanyahu-israel-will-not-cede-territory-to-palestinians-in-current-mideast-climate/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/netanyahu-israel-will-not-cede-territory-to-palestinians-in-current-mideast-climate/#commentsSun, 08 Mar 2015 22:10:40 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=690149Israeli PM's comments, rejecting a key goal of the international community, come with national elections coming next week

]]>JERUSALEM —Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel will not cede any territory due to the current climate in the Middle East, appearing to rule out the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu’s comments, which came as he sought to appeal to hard-liners ahead of national elections next week, rejected a key goal of the international community and bode poorly for reviving peace efforts if he is re-elected.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that any evacuated territory would fall into the hands of Islamic extremism and terror organizations supported by Iran. Therefore, there will be no concessions and no withdrawals. It is simply irrelevant,” read a statement released by his Likud party.

The international community has long pushed for the creation of a Palestinian state on lands captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. In 1993, Israel and the Palestinians signed an interim agreement that was to lead to the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Numerous rounds of peace negotiations have been held since then, with the most recent talks breaking down last year.

Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said Netanyahu was using regional strife as an excuse.

“Today Netanyahu revealed his true face,” Erekat said. “Since 1993, he worked hard for the destruction of the option of peace and the option of a two-state solution.”

Ahead of national elections, centrist and leftist political parties in Israel have said they support the resumption of peace efforts with the Palestinians.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/netanyahu-israel-will-not-cede-territory-to-palestinians-in-current-mideast-climate/feed/3Canada opposes Palestinian attempts to join UN treatieshttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/canada-opposes-palestinian-attempts-to-join-united-nations-treaties/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/canada-opposes-palestinian-attempts-to-join-united-nations-treaties/#commentsMon, 16 Feb 2015 10:40:16 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=680401Canada is objecting in writing to the UN because it maintains Palestine is not a legal state

]]>OTTAWA – Canada has formally opposed Palestinian attempts to join 15 different United Nations treaties and conventions – a position that puts the federal government on the wrong side of history and at odds with its citizenry, the Palestinian envoy in Ottawa says.

Canada is objecting in writing to the UN because it maintains Palestine is not a legal state. The Palestinians have formally replied to Canada’s objections in writing, issuing a pointed reminder that they won non-member observer status in November 2012 at the UN General Assembly.

The dispute has sparked the most scathing Palestinian criticism to date of the Harper government’s unwavering support of Israel.

“It pains the Palestinians to know that Canada is trying to exclude us from our rightful place in the family of nations. It is awkward to see a great country like Canada relegated to the role of cheerleader for Israeli extremists at the UN,” Said Hamad, the chief representative of the Palestinian delegation to Canada, said in an emailed response to questions.

“When future Canadians look back at Canada’s positions during this time they will be appalled that their country was so boldly opposed to justice and so far on the wrong side of history,” he added.

“We invite Canada to pursue a position of its own – rather than parrot policies developed by the Likud Party and its ultranationalist allies – on the matter of Palestinian freedom.”

Canada voted against the Palestinian bid for statehood recognition along with Israel, the United States and six smaller countries, but it still won the approval of the 193-member UN General Assembly.

On Nov. 29, 2012, John Baird – who was foreign affairs minister at the time – flew to New York to deliver a speech to the General Assembly to express Canada’s opposition to the bid.

Now, Canada is making it clear to the UN that because it does not recognize “Palestine” as a state, it does not recognize any treaty relations with it, either.

In documents filed by the UN, Canada has objected to the Palestinians acceding to the Rome Statute that creates the International Criminal Court and 14 other conventions and protocols.

Among them are the Convention on Biodiversity, the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, the UN Law of the Sea, a convention against transnational organized crime, a protocol on biosafety and biological diversity and the convention on womens’ rights.

In repetitive legalese, one of the documents citing Canada’s position says, “‘Palestine’ does not meet the criteria of a state under international law and is not recognized by Canada as a state.” It says that Canada considers any declarations “made by the ‘State of Palestine’ to be without any legal validity or effect.”

In its repeated replies, “The State of Palestine” says it “regrets the position of Canada and wishes to recall” the resolution of Nov. 29, 2012, that granted it “non-observer state status in the United Nations.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs says Canada has officially registered its objections to the Palestinian action with the UN Secretary General and the International Criminal Court.

“Canada’s position on Palestinian efforts to join the ICC and to become party to other treaties is clear: the Palestinians do not meet the criteria of a state under international law. They are not recognized by Canada as a state,” said spokesman Francois Lasalle.

“This provocative Palestinian attempt to politicize international organizations will not contribute to peace in the region.”

New Democrat foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar said the Palestinians have earned the right to join UN treaties and conventions.

“At a time when we’re facing a crisis in Ukraine and devastation in Syria and Iraq, I’m sure there’s much more important work that our diplomats at the UN could be doing to save lives and promote global peace and security.”

Canada also opposes the Palestinian bid to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), a treaty that Canada itself signed in 2008 but has yet to ratify.

While the Canadian government has yet to formally deposit any ratification documents on the CCM with the UN, it has nonetheless managed to register its objection to the Palestinian desire to ratify it.

“Canada considers the declaration made by the ‘State of Palestine’ to be without any legal validity or effect,” says the notification on the CCM circulated by the UN on Jan. 23.

Last week, the UN circulated the Palestinian reply, which came with the same boilerplate statement of regret and reminder of UN recognition.

“The Conservatives should focus on ratifying Canada’s commitments on the Convention on Cluster Munitions rather than trying to keep others from joining this important international treaty,” said Dewar.

Canada has faced international condemnation for dragging its heels on ratifying the CCM, and for proposing ratification legislation that could undermine the treaty.

Cluster bombs are tiny submunitions that often lay dormant for decades, eventually maiming and killing innocent civilians.

Israel’s 72-hour bombardment of south Lebanon with cluster bombs in the final hours of its 2006 summer war with Hezbollah terrorists spurred the international effort to create the treaty banning the weapons.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/canada-opposes-palestinian-attempts-to-join-united-nations-treaties/feed/2Case of 14-year-old Palestinian girl in Israeli prison stirs angerhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/case-of-14-year-old-palestinian-girl-in-israeli-prison-stirs-anger/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/case-of-14-year-old-palestinian-girl-in-israeli-prison-stirs-anger/#respondWed, 28 Jan 2015 10:43:21 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=671207The girl was sentenced to two months in prison for throwing rocks at passing cars in the West Bank

]]>The fate of a 14-year-old Palestinian girl, tried before an Israeli military court for hurling rocks at passing cars in the West Bank and sentenced to two months in prison, has gripped Palestinians who say her treatment demonstrates Israel’s excessive measures against stone-throwing youth.

Malak al-Khatib, arrested last month, is one of only a rare few female Palestinian minors who have ever faced arrest and sentencing by Israeli authorities.

“A 14-year-old girl won’t pose any threat to soldiers’ lives,” said her father, Ali al-Khatib. “They are well equipped and well trained so what kind of threat could she have posed to them?”

The Israeli military said al-Khatib was charged with stone-throwing, attempted stone-throwing and possession of a knife and that under a plea bargain, she was sentenced to two months in prison and a $1,500 fine.

Having spent four weeks in detention, al-Khatib has another four left weeks left at a central Israeli prison for women.

Out of a total of more than 5,500 Palestinians held by Israel, about 150 are minors, the vast majority of them male, according to official figures from November, provided by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

Malak al-Khatib is among a handful of female minors ever held by Israel. Palestinian officials say she is the youngest girl ever detained and sentenced by Israel – a claim Israeli officials and rights groups said they were not able to confirm.

Palestinians and rights groups criticize Israel for its response to rock-throwing, either directed at its forces or civilians. Israel views rock-throwing as a dangerous tactic and at times a life-threatening attack, and claims it can be the first step toward militancy. Palestinians see it as a legitimate way to resist Israel’s occupation.

Israel was hit by a wave of riots by Palestinians in east Jerusalem last year, following the killing of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy by Jewish extremists in revenge for the abduction and murder of three Israeli teens.

Up to 1,000 protesters were arrested, many of them for stone-throwing. Israeli police said many of those arrested were minors. Some of them, schoolbags strapped to their backs, hurled stones at security forces on their way to or from school.

Protests in the West Bank since then have been more subdued, but still occur frequently, with Palestinian protesters clashing with Israeli troops – incidents that often end in arrests.

Stones and small rocks have become an iconic weapon in the West Bank. In the past six years, more than half of all arrests of Palestinian youth have been over stone-throwing.

On Dec. 31, al-Khatib walked to a West Bank road used by both Israelis and Palestinians, and began throwing stones at passing cars, Palestinian officials told her parents.

Israeli security forces later arrested her and said they found a knife in her possession.

“These kids grow up with news about clashes, about oppression of Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and they go to express themselves,” Ali al-Khatib said.

The girl’s parents, who appeared with her in court, said her feet were shackled and she was handcuffed.

Since her arrest, the case has received constant media attention in the West Bank and spawned countless memes and caricatures, some showing al-Khatib, full-cheeked and pouty-lipped, behind bars and holding a teddy bear. One drawing shows a cherubic al-Khatib – whose first name means angel in Arabic – tied to shackles held by an Israeli soldier.

At her home, al-Khatib’s bedroom shows the interests of a 14-year-old girl steeped in the realities of day-to-day life in the West Bank.

Bracelets and necklaces bearing the colours of the Palestinian flag and a poster of a Palestinian man from her village killed in clashes with Israeli forces lie near a picture of Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo.

Sarit Michaeli from B’Tselem said that under Israel’s military justice system, al-Khatib will not be afforded the same rights and protections as Israeli minors under Israel’s legal system.

“An Israeli child will not be held in detention for three weeks, even a boy, let alone a girl, because of these protections provided to children by the Israeli youth law,” she said.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians claim for their hoped-for state. Palestinians living in the West Bank are subject to Israel’s military justice system, whereas Jewish settlers and Israelis fall under a separate legal system.

Issa Karake, head of the Palestinian government’s Prisoner Affairs Department, said al-Khatib’s case is just another in a policy meant to break the spirits of young people resisting the Israeli occupation.

“The Israelis show no tolerance with the Palestinian children,” Karake said. “The Israelis are crushing a whole generation.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/case-of-14-year-old-palestinian-girl-in-israeli-prison-stirs-anger/feed/0France’s Jewish exodus—to Britainhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/frances-jewish-exodus/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/frances-jewish-exodus/#commentsSun, 25 Jan 2015 13:57:27 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=668063In the wake of the Paris attacks, thousands of French Jews are fleeing—not to Israel, but to Britain

The return of widespread anti-Semitism has become an old story in modern Europe. For a couple of years now, there have been reports of sharp rises in anti-Jewish protests and attacks in countries as culturally varied as Hungary, Belgium, Germany, Greece and France. Gallons of ink have been spilled in recent years chronicling the “new exodus” of Europe’s Jewry to safer cultural ground­—mostly to Israel.

But in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and subsequent Jewish supermarket attack in Paris, France has come under particular international scrutiny for its incidents of religious hatred. Because of this, many of France’s Jews are leaving for safer shores and a large number are crossing the English Channel to Britain.

Precise numbers are difficult to come by because of porous EU borders, but, last week, the Jewish Chronicle reported that as many as 6,000 French Jews were planning emigrate to the U.K. in the aftermath of the recent attacks. And the Times reported that, of the estimated 20,000 French Jews in Britain, between 4,000 and 5,000 had arrived in the past two years.

In London, Jewish community leaders say the influx is palpable. The St. John’s Wood synagogue in north London has set up a separate French-language congregational service that is now regularly attended by more than 100 people each week. French voices can be heard all over London, particularly in South Kensington, where many French immigrants—Jewish, Muslim and Christian alike—have chosen to settle. And while many French Jews will have come to London to enjoy the opportunities of the economic recovery, some are undoubtedly there because of the rise of anti-Semitism in their homeland.

The Jewish Journal published a study that found a 58 per cent rise in anti-Jewish attacks in France as long ago as 2012. Last summer, during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, hundreds of Parisian protesters repeatedly attacked two separate synagogues with bricks and ﬁrebombs. Newsweek compared the attacks to a scene “out to the pogroms of czarist Russia” or Europe in the 1930s. Others said it was like the intifada (the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation) come to France. It was a disturbing spectre of religious violence, and one that made France’s established Jewish population sit up and take note.

Regine de Frettes, 55, a French Jewish IT business owner, came to work in Britain as an au pair 30 years ago and ended up marrying and settling in Britain. Today, she says her extended family, who all remain based in Paris, are, for the first time, seriously considering leaving France. “My elderly parents are devastated that, twice in their lifetime, they should see this level of anti-Jewish feeling, but they are too old to move. But my younger cousins in their 30s and 40s are all planning to leave for either Britain or America. They don’t want to leave, because they feel completely French, but they just don’t feel safe anymore.”

Daniel, a 42-year-old French financier, moved his wife and two small children to London 18 months ago after he was offered a job at a major bank. He asked that only his first name be used, as he didn’t want his British colleagues to know he’d suffered prejudice in Paris. “It’s not something one likes to talk about but, yes, it’s definitely there,” he said of the anti-Jewish sentiment in France. “There were many reasons to move my family to London, but I’m sad to say that was one of the them.”

De Frettes describes how, on a recent trip to Paris for her niece’s bat mitzvah, her relatives advised her family not to hang around on the synagogue steps before or after the service, and warned her husband not to wear his yarmulke on the street for his own safety. Her niece, she says, has already had to change schools because of religious bullying.

A 2012 study found that more than half of Jewish people in France had come to believe that anti-Semitism had become “a very big problem” in their country—a figure that’s undoubtedly much higher today. Comparatively, only 11 per cent of British Jews felt the same.

But recent numbers show this might be changing. Two reports published last week by Britain’s campaign against anti-Semitism warned that more than half of British Jews had considered emigrating themselves, and almost half of Britons held at least one anti-Semitic opinion. The findings were drawn from a YouGov survey of 3,400 Britons that found 25 per cent agreed with the sentence: “Jews chase money more than other British people,” and 20 per cent believe Jews are less loyal to Britain.

But de Frettes, who peacefully practises her religion in a small town in Berkshire, insists that, in contrast to her Parisian family, she has never experienced anti-Semitism in Britain. “I feel it’s a very tolerant and peaceful place to live.” As for her French relatives planning to join her, she says they are making their arrangements and should be arriving in the coming months. “My only hope,” she says, “is that they don’t leave it too late.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/frances-jewish-exodus/feed/8Man stabs 9 people on Tel Aviv bus before being shot and arrestedhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/man-stabs-9-people-on-tel-aviv-bus-before-being-shot-and-arrested/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/man-stabs-9-people-on-tel-aviv-bus-before-being-shot-and-arrested/#respondWed, 21 Jan 2015 08:28:10 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=667911Police identified the assailant as a Palestinian from the West Bank and said he had entered Israel illegally

]]>JERUSALEM – A Palestinian man stabbed nine people, wounding some of them seriously, on a bus in central Tel Aviv before he was chased down, shot and arrested, Israeli police said Wednesday, describing the assault as a “terror attack.” The Islamic militant Hamas group praised the stabbing.

The assault was the latest in a spate of attacks in which Palestinians have used knives, acid and vehicles as weapons in recent months, leaving dead and injured. Police identified the assailant as a Palestinian from the West Bank and said he had entered Israel illegally.

The assailant, who was on the bus himself, travelling with the other passengers, began stabbing people, including the driver, then managed to get out of the bus and started fleeing the scene.

Officers from a prison service who happened to be nearby and saw the bus swerving out of control and a man running away, gave chase, shot the man in the leg, wounding him lightly and subsequently arrested him.

“We believe it was a terror attack,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. He said four people were seriously hurt and another five sustained lighter wounds. The stabber was in custody and the police are questioning him now, he said.

The stabbing is the latest in a type of “lone-wolf” attacks that have plagued Israel in recent months. About a dozen people have been killed in Palestinian attacks, including five people killed with guns and meat cleavers in a bloody assault on a Jerusalem synagogue.

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza Strip did not claim responsibility but praised Wednesday’s attack as “brave and heroic” in a tweet by Izzat Risheq, a Hamas leader residing in Qatar.

The stabbing is a “natural response to the occupation and its terrorist crimes against our people,” Risheq said.

Israeli officials say the attacks stem from incitement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders.

Most of the violence has occurred in Jerusalem, though there have been other attacks in Tel Aviv and the West Bank.

In Jerusalem, the violence came after months of tensions between Jews and Palestinians in east Jerusalem – the section of the city the Palestinians demand as their future capital. The area experienced unrest and near-daily attacks by Palestinians following a wave of violence last summer, capped by a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.

Much of the recent unrest has stemmed from tensions surrounding a key holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City. It is the holiest site for Jews, who call it the Temple Mount because of the revered Jewish Temples that stood there in biblical times. Muslims refer to it as the Noble Sanctuary, and it is their third holiest site, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Baird issued a statement saying his meeting with Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki was “cordial and constructive” and featured some candid exchanges on issues the two sides differ on.

Later Baird met with his Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman.

Canada has been one of only a few Western countries to stand by Israel as it has come under fierce international criticism over deadlocked negotiations with the Palestinians, the recent Gaza war and its settlement building.

Canada has expressed opposition to the Palestinians’ unilateral attempts to reach statehood as well as its recent bid to pursue war crime charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court.

]]>OTTAWA – Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird decided not to visit one of Jerusalem’s most contested holy sites, which has been a tinderbox of violence in recent months.

The Canadian Press obtained a draft itinerary for Baird’s four-day trip to Israel, which starts Friday, and it lists an afternoon stop at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. A separate stop Friday afternoon at the al-Aqsa Mosque is labelled “TBC” or to be confirmed.

The two destinations are part of a contested and historic hilltop that is considered holy by Jews and Muslims. Jews call it Temple Mount and to Muslims it is the Noble Sanctuary.

It has been the scene of violent clashes in recent months between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police. Tensions were elevated in October when the police killed a Palestinian man suspected of trying to kill a Jewish activist who was promoting more access to the site.

Two Israeli media reports this week quoted the country’s police chief, Yohanan Danino, as saying in a speech that visits to the hilltop compound pose “an existential threat” to the Jewish state because of the ongoing tension.

Initially, Baird’s spokesman would not say whether the minister was still planning to visit the sites on Friday, saying, “We don’t comment on details of drafts of the minister’s itinerary.”

But in a follow up email Thursday evening, spokesman Adam Hodge confirmed Baird would not visit either place.

He offered no further explanation.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper also cancelled a trip to the Dome of the Rock during his visit to Israel a year ago because of security considerations.

The hilltop is revered in Judaism as the site of biblical Hebrew temples.

It is Islam’s third-holiest site, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and is revered by Muslims as the place where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

Baird’s choice of destinations in Israel sparked controversy in April 2013 when he met an Israeli cabinet minister for coffee in East Jerusalem, territory that the Palestinians and the United Nations consider to be disputed land.

Baird’s upcoming visit includes a stop in the West Bank capital of Ramallah on Sunday, where he is to meet his Palestinian Authority counterpart Riad al-Malki. In Jerusalem, he is also expected to meet other key Palestinian figures including former Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad.

It will be Baird’s first opportunity to meet Palestinian officials since the United Nations Security Council blocked a Palestinian effort to set a three-year deadline for the establishment of a Palestinian state on lands occupied by Israel.

Baird spoke out against the move, as he has with similar Palestinian statehood initiatives at the UN.

“Canada believes strongly in a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and that negotiations provide the only viable path to lasting peace,” Baird said in a statement on Thursday.

“It is important that we create an environment that enables the private sector to develop key economic areas and create sustainable jobs that will form the foundation for economic growth.”

Baird says he wants to strengthen Canada’s partnership with Israel on a number of fronts, including security and trade.

When Baird kicks off his visit Friday, he will arrive in a country facing a national election on March 17.

Before departing on Tuesday, Baird is to meet the major candidates, including incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as opposition leader Isaac Herzog and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who have formed an opposing coalition.

]]>JERUSALEM —Israeli leaders gathered with the families of the four Jewish victims of a Paris terror attack on a kosher supermarket for an emotional funeral procession in Jerusalem.

Relatives of the victims each spoke briefly and lit a torch in memory of their loved ones before stepping off the stage with a huge Israeli flag in the background to embrace Israel’s president, the prime minister and his wife.

Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, Francois-Michel Saada and Phillipe Braham died Friday during a tense hostage standoff at the market on the eastern edge of Paris. The bodies were brought by plane to Israel early Tuesday morning.

“Yoav, Yohan, Phillipe, Francois-Michel — this is not how we wanted to welcome you to Israel,” President Reuven Rivlin said, his voice quivering. “We wanted you alive, we wanted for you, life. At moments such as these, I stand before you, brokenhearted, shaken and in pain, and with me stands and cries an entire nation.”

The four were among 17 people killed in a wave of terror attacks carried out over three days last week by militants claiming allegiance to al-Qaida and the Islamic State extremist groups.

The killings shocked France’s 500,000 strong Jewish community _ the largest in Europe _ and deepened fears among European Jewish communities already shaken by rising anti-Semitism and threats from Muslim extremists.

The attack sparked calls from Israeli leaders for European Jews to immigrate to the Jewish state, a call repeated by Rivlin.

“However, returning to your ancestral home need not be due to distress, out of desperation, amidst destruction, or in the throes of terror and fear,” he said. “Terror has never kept us down, and we do not want terror to subdue you. The Land of Israel is the land of choice. We want you to choose Israel, because of a love for Israel.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israel-buries-four-jewish-victims-of-paris-supermarket-attack/feed/0Palestinians say they will try to join ICC after failed UN votehttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/palestinians-say-they-will-try-to-join-icc-after-failed-un-vote/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/palestinians-say-they-will-try-to-join-icc-after-failed-un-vote/#respondWed, 31 Dec 2014 14:05:07 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=658829On Tuesday the U.N. voted against a call for the Israeli occupation to end within three years

]]>RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian leaders will meet Wednesday to plan their next steps after the U.N. Security Council rejected a resolution to end Israel’s occupation and could set a date for applying to join the International Criminal Court, Palestinian officials said.

The U.N. vote Tuesday against the Palestinian bid, which called for the Israeli occupation to end within three years, was a blow to an Arab campaign for international action to bring about an independent Palestinian state.

The Palestinians long have vowed to join the International Criminal Court to press charges against Israel for alleged war crimes, though their membership could expose the Palestinians to similar accusations.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said officials would hold a “very serious meeting” Wednesday and could set a date for applying for membership to the court and other international agencies.

“There will be no more waiting, no more hesitation, no more slowdown,” Erekat said. “We are going to meet and make decisions.”

Frustrated by the moribund peace process, the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank has pursued a more confrontational approach toward Israel and the U.S. by seeking broader international recognition for a Palestinian state. In 2012, the U.N. accepted Palestine as a non-member observer state. The Palestinians’ next step was the U.N. bid to set a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, and Australia voted against Tuesday’s U.N. resolution. The U.S. has called for negotiations rather than an imposed timetable.

“I want to express my appreciation and gratitude to the U.S. and Australia,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday. He said he also received assurances from the Rwandan and Nigerian presidents that they would not support the resolution.

“They stood by their words and this is what tipped the scales,” Netanyahu said.

France and Luxembourg were among countries that voted in favour of the U.N. resolution, reflecting growing impatience, especially in Europe, over the lack of progress in more than two decades of on-again off-again peace talks.

Also Wednesday, two masked assailants threw a firebomb into a Palestinian home in a suspected Israeli attack in the southern West Bank village of Khirbet al-Karmil, Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said. The attack caused no casualties and the word “revenge” in Hebrew was found scrawled nearby, she said.

The attack comes after a firebomb attack last week on a car belonging to Jewish settlers in the West Bank. A young Israeli girl suffered serious burns and her father was lightly wounded in the attack. Israel says it arrested Palestinians who confessed to throwing the firebomb.

]]>JERUSALEM – Israel’s police said Wednesday they are investigating dozens of public figures and politicians in a major corruption case that could impact upcoming elections.

Police didn’t name the politicians involved when making the announcement on Wednesday. After a yearlong covert operation, police said they are investigating 30 suspects including a deputy minister, a former minister, mayors and others.

In a statement, police said officials are suspected of nepotism, and illegally transferring funds to various bodies.

Deputy Interior Minister, Faina Kirshenbaum, of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beteinu party, confirmed that she had been called in for questioning while denying any wrongdoing.

“I am sure of my integrity and I have no clue what the investigation is about,” Kirshenbaum told Channel 2 TV.

Yisrael Beteinu is an important player in Israeli elections set for March. It is not clear how the police investigation would affect the politicians involved or the elections.

Lieberman himself was recently investigated for corruption, but was cleared of wrongdoing in 2013.

Lieberman’s party could play a pivotal role in the elections. He has traditionally allied with the right-wing bloc but recent comments have raised questions about a potential strategic shift.

Lieberman chastised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his strategy in talks with the Palestinians during a conference at Tel Aviv University on Tuesday. He warned Israel would face a “diplomatic tsunami” and its economy and foreign relations would suffer without an agreement. U.S.-brokered peace talks collapsed last spring.

According to the Haaretz newspaper, Lieberman sounded like a dovish politician when he spoke Tuesday. His nationalist party has a history of taking a hard-line toward the Palestinians and Lieberman lives in a West Bank settlement.

His comments add uncertainty to the March election as it raises the possibility he might not automatically align his party with Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israeli-police-investigating-corruption-case-ahead-of-elections/feed/0Israel carries out first airstrike in Gaza since summer warhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israel-carries-out-first-airstrike-on-hamas-in-gaza-since-summer-war/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israel-carries-out-first-airstrike-on-hamas-in-gaza-since-summer-war/#commentsFri, 19 Dec 2014 23:50:31 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=655543The Israeli military said the airstrike on what it called a “Hamas terror infrastructure site” in Gaza

]]>JERUSALEM – Israel’s military struck a Hamas site in the Gaza Strip early Saturday in its first airstrike on the Palestinian territory since this summer’s war.

The Israeli military said the airstrike on what it called a “Hamas terror infrastructure site” in the southern Gaza Strip was in response to a rocket fired from Gaza into southern Israel on Friday. The rocket fire caused no injuries.

Palestinian residents reported hearing two explosions in the Khan Yunis region of Gaza, in an area that contains training sites for Palestinian militants. No injuries were immediately reported.

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman, said Israel’s military “will not permit any attempt to undermine the security and jeopardize the well being of the civilians of Israel. The Hamas terrorist organization is responsible and accountable for today’s attack against Israel.”

The Gaza rocket attack and Israeli retaliation came days after a European Union court ordered Hamas removed from the EU terrorist list for procedural reasons, but said the bloc can maintain asset freezes against Hamas members for now. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas is “a murderous terror organization” and called for Hamas to be immediately returned to the list.

Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, fought a 50-day war this summer. In that war, Hamas launched thousands of rockets and mortars toward Israel, which carried out an aerial campaign and a ground invasion.

The war left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead, according to Palestinian and U.N. officials. On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six civilians were killed.

In the West Bank on Friday, fierce clashes erupted between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces at a West Bank military checkpoint and near the village of Turmus Aya, though no injuries were reported.

The village was the site of a Palestinian-Israeli scuffle earlier this month during which Palestinian Cabinet minister Ziad Abu Ain collapsed. He later died en route to hospital.

Palestinian and Israeli pathologists subsequently disagreed over the cause of Abu Ain’s death. The Palestinian expert said the cause of death was a “blow,” while his Israeli colleague said Abu Ain died of a heart attack.

In other developments, the Israeli military on Friday began relaxing travel restrictions for Palestinian Christians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the Christmas holiday season, saying it granted 700 permits for Gazans to travel to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.

Israel said it was also allowing West Bank Christians to travel to Israel, permitting 500 of them to visit their families in the Gaza Strip, subject to security checks.

Israel restricts Palestinians in the two territories from entering the country without special permits, citing security concerns. Travel between the territories is also restricted but those bans are usually relaxed for Christians during the holiday season.

The army also said it would also expand the working hours at military checkpoints to allow pilgrims from around the world faster access to the West Bank city of Bethlehem during Christmas.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israel-carries-out-first-airstrike-on-hamas-in-gaza-since-summer-war/feed/1Palestinians tell Canada to back Geneva Conventions meetinghttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/palestinians-tell-canada-to-back-geneva-conventions-meeting/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/palestinians-tell-canada-to-back-geneva-conventions-meeting/#respondFri, 19 Dec 2014 10:32:38 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=654875The top Palestinian diplomat in Canada says the government should not have boycotted a UN conference this week that criticized Israeli settlements in the West Bank

]]>OTTAWA – The top Palestinian diplomat in Canada says the Harper government should not have boycotted a United Nations conference this week that harshly criticized Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Said Hamad says Canada should have joined other countries at a conference in Geneva examining the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs the rules of war and military occupation.

Some 126 countries of the 196 international parties to the convention adopted a resolution Wednesday saying Israel’s construction of settlements does not conform to its international legal obligations as an occupying power.

Along with Israel and the U.S., Canada boycotted the conference, another example of unwavering Conservative support of Israel – a position that has exposed deep differences with the majority of the United Nations.

“We had hoped Canada would participate in this conference, given its long-standing policy that ‘Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The settlements also constitute a serious obstacle to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace,”’ Hamad said in a written statement.

“We urge all countries absent from the conference to rejoin the international community’s efforts to enforce the rule of law.”

Hamad was quoting from Canada’s written foreign policy, posted on the Foreign Affairs Department website – a written policy that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird have been reluctant to repeat out loud.

Hamad did not respond to a request for an interview.

In his own statement, Baird said Canada stayed away from the Geneva meeting to avoid lending credibility to a process it views as one-sided and politicized.

The meeting “serves only to single out one country, Israel, for criticism,” Baird said.

“Canada has complete faith in the strength of the rule of law in Israel, and we believe the Israelis are capable of investigating matters surrounding the events that took place in Gaza in the summer of 2014.”

The 50-day war between Israel and the Islamic militant group Hamas left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead, most of them civilians, says the UN. In Israel, 72 people were killed, most of them soldiers.

The UN Human Rights Council has appointed a commission of inquiry to look into the Gaza war, and is to table a report in March. Baird has criticized the council for singling out Israel and ignoring the Hamas rocket attacks, and generally regards its work as being biased against Israel.

Baird said the UN’s latest examination of the issue this week risks “undermining the integrity and credibility of the Geneva Conventions and the neutrality of their application. Such a misguided approach will neither serve the cause of peace nor bring the parties closer to a negotiated settlement.”

Israel says the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem because the Palestinians have never had their own sovereign state.

However, Canada’s own written foreign policy statement says they do.

“Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 (the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip),” says the statement on the Foreign Affairs website.

“The Fourth Geneva Convention applies in the occupied territories and establishes Israel’s obligations as an occupying power, in particular with respect to the humane treatment of the inhabitants of the occupied territories.”

The intractable Middle East conflict has also driven a wedge between Canada and the European Union this week.

Baird said he was “deeply concerned” by a decision by the EU’s General Court to take Hamas off its list of terrorist organizations. Canada has listed Hamas as a terrorist organization.

“We understand that restrictive measures remain in place for the time being, and we call on the EU to take the immediate remedial steps necessary to keep Hamas listed as a terrorist entity,” Baird said in a separate statement.

Gunmen on motorcycles fired dozens of shots at the Israeli embassy in Athens this morning. No one was hurt. No group has claimed responsibility. And, as of this writing, nothing is known about the assailants.

That hasn’t stopped Israel from blaming the incident on “incitement” by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and pro-Palestinian organizations.

“The terrorist attack in Athens earlier today, during which automatic gunfire was aimed at the Embassy of Israel is another link in the chain of violence caused by the Palestinian anti-Israeli incitement being spread throughout the world by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and pro-Palestinian organizations,” reads a statement issued by Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

“The international community should strongly condemn this ongoing incitement and the resulting violence and terrorism.”

Israel similarly blamed Palestinian government incitement for a series of recent attacks in and around Jerusalem, including one in which four rabbis and a policeman were murdered at a synagogue.

Relations between Israelis and Palestinians have been even more strained of late, in large part because of tensions surrounding the Temple Mount, a Jerusalem compound known to Muslims as the Holy Sanctuary. It contains the al-Aqsa Mosque and is the site of Judaism’s Second Temple. Non-Muslims currently have limited access to it. Some right-wing Israelis want to change that, though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will preserve the status quo.

Israel accused Abbas, who condemned the synagogue murders, of stoking tensions over the compound, contributing to an “atmosphere of violence” that led to the attacks.

Khaled Elgindy, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who previously advised the Palestinians on negotiations with Israel, rejected that explanation.

“People don’t go on a killing rampage because someone sitting in Ramallah [the de facto capital of the Palestinian West Bank] pushed a button or wrote something in a newspaper or said something on the radio,” he said in an interview with Maclean’s last month.

But the attacks in Jerusalem did take place in the midst of steadily escalating animosity and political confrontation. Yehuda Glick, an activist who wants more Jewish access to the Temple Mount, told Israeli media that the Palestinian man who shot and wounded him told him, before pulling the trigger: “I’m sorry, but I’m shooting you because you defile al-Aqsa.”

The attacker, who was shot dead, was reportedly a member of Islamic Jihad, and was therefore unlikely to have much cared what Abbas had to say.

Still, it’s plausible that Israel believes the Palestinian government bears some responsibility for the attack on Glick, and others, in recent months in Israel.

It’s a little harder to take seriously Israel’s assertion that Abbas incited today’s attack in Athens. We don’t know who attacked the embassy or why. Neither does Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Israel seems intent on discrediting Abbas as a potential negotiating partner. Why anyone in the Israeli government might think this is a good idea eludes me.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister fired two senior Cabinet ministers from his divided government Tuesday and said he would call early elections, plunging the country toward a heated campaign more than two years ahead of schedule.

The announcement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reflected the deep differences in his Cabinet over a host of issues, ranging from a budget battle to a contentious bill defining Israel as “the Jewish state.” A last-ditch attempt to repair the rifts failed late Monday.

In a statement, Netanyahu’s office said he ordered the dismissals of Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. The pair, who head separate centrist parties, have emerged as his leading critics in recent weeks.

“I will not tolerate an opposition within the government any more. I will not tolerate ministers attacking government policy from within the government,” the statement quoted Netanyahu as saying.

It said he would call for dissolving the parliament as soon as possible and seek a “clear mandate” from the public to lead the nation.

Netanyahu planned a nationwide address later Tuesday.

The current government took office in early 2013 and has been riven by divisions.

The coalition includes Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid, which rose to power with promises of economic relief for Israel’s middle class; Livni’s Hatnuah, which is focused on reaching peace with the Palestinians; Jewish Home, a hard-line party linked to the West Bank settler movement; and Yisrael Beitenu, a nationalist party that seeks to redraw Israel’s borders to rid the country of many Arab citizens. Netanyahu’s own Likud party is divided between more centrist old timers and a young guard of hard-line ideologues.

In its short time in office, the government has squabbled over numerous issues, including the budget, the collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks, Jewish settlement construction and how to confront a wave of Palestinian attacks in Jerusalem.

The differences escalated last week when Netanyahu pushed a piece of legislation defining Israel as “the Jewish state.” Although its 1948 Declaration of Independence already does this, Netanyahu says the country must enshrine this at the constitutional level to send a message to the country’s enemies.

Critics say the wording that Netanyahu favours would undermine Israel’s democratic character and harm the rights of Israel’s Arab citizens. Both Lapid and Livni harshly condemned the legislation.

The government waged a fierce 50-day war against militants in the Gaza Strip over the summer. Its attempts to pursue peace with the Palestinians ended in failure last spring.

Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi said Netanyahu was pushing for elections “based on his extreme right and racist ideology.”

Netanyahu fired Lapid a day after a late-night meeting meant to patch up their differences over the budget ended in failure.

Netanyahu issued a statement just moments after the meeting ended that laid out a series of tough conditions for Lapid. The hasty move drew accusations from Lapid that the meeting had been a charade and its outcome preplanned.

“The firing of ministers is an act of cowardice and loss of control,” Lapid said after his dismissal. “We are sad to see that the prime minister has chosen to act without consideration for the national interest and to drag Israel to unnecessary elections.”

Meir Sheetrit, a lawmaker from Livni’s Hatnua party, said earlier Tuesday that the government had stopped functioning and he had “no doubt” there would be new elections, probably next March.

Sheetrit said the only way to unseat Netanyahu would be for centrist parties to join forces and present a unified alternative.

“This is the only chance to give people hope that they can really change this government,” he said.

]]>JERUSALEM – Israel appeared to be headed toward early elections Tuesday after a highly anticipated meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a key coalition partner failed to iron out their differences.

The late Monday meeting between Netanyahu and centrist Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid followed weeks of sparring between the sides over budget provisions including an increase for the Ministry of Defence and Yesh Atid’s opposition to the current version of a contentious bill that would enshrine Israel’s status as a Jewish state.

Together with another centrist member of Netanyahu’s coalition, Lapid believes that Netanyahu has veered too far to the right in pushing Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and failing to advance the peace process with the Palestinians.

“Netanyahu has chosen to go to elections when the situation is particularly difficult,” said Yesh Atid’s Yaacov Peri, the science minister. “There is a crisis with the United States and the condition of the middle class is deteriorating.”

Peri said that up until Monday night’s meeting he wasn’t sure that elections were imminent, but that meeting convinced him Netanyahu’s coalition was doomed.

“I think we’re going to elections,” he said.

Chairman Danny Danon of Netanyahu’s Likud party blamed “the amateurish antics of Yair Lapid” for “dragging Israel to an unnecessary, and expensive, early election.”

“After the Likud is victorious at the ballot box, we must be sure not to repeat mistakes of the past and form the next coalition government with loyal and like-minded parties that are interested in serving as true partners in leading our great country,” he said.

That suggests a far-right coalition, with a major emphasis on Jewish settlement and Jewish-oriented legislation.

Netanyahu can still fill out the remainder of his two-year term even without the support of Yesh Atid by bringing ultra-orthodox parties into his government.

But those parties have so far shown no willingness to join him, apparently preferring the alternative of an early poll.

If early elections are held, the most likely date would be sometime in March, according to Israeli media.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/israel-appears-headed-to-early-elections/feed/0Why recent terror attacks are sparking fears of a new ‘intifada’http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/why-recent-terror-attacks-in-jerusalem-are-sparking-fears-of-a-new-intifada/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/why-recent-terror-attacks-in-jerusalem-are-sparking-fears-of-a-new-intifada/#commentsThu, 27 Nov 2014 13:23:52 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=644341Israel's control of the Holy City is more secure than ever. But recent terror attacks there have ratcheted up tensions.

After a deadly rampage by gun- and knife-wielding Palestinians in a synagogue killed four rabbis and a policeman, Israelis are in “a battle for Jerusalem,” said the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

If his rhetoric was overheated—Israel’s control of the Holy City is as secure as it has ever been—the metropolis claimed as a capital by both Israelis and Palestinians is nevertheless in the midst of the worst violence it has suffered in years. A series of Palestinian attacks, including one in which a car was intentionally driven into a crowd, killing a three-month-old girl, have raised tensions in the already divided city and have led some to worry that a third Palestinian intifada, or general uprising, may be beginning.

Netanyahu, in an address following the synagogue attack, said there is “daily, even hourly, incitement” against Israel from Palestinian Authority-controlled territory. In an interview, Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said the prime minister was not accusing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of ordering or desiring terrorist attacks, but said his words have “contributed to an atmosphere of violence that is ultimately stirring recent attacks.”

Regev specifically accused Abbas of giving credence to “baseless” accusations that Israel is plotting to change the status quo of the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The Jerusalem compound contains the al-Aqsa Mosque and is the site of Judaism’s Second Temple. Non-Muslims currently have limited access to it, but there is a campaign by some right-wing Israelis to change this so they can visit more frequently and openly pray there. Regev says Netanyahu has made an “ironclad” commitment to prevent that.

The status of the Temple Mount, however, is only one factor in a steadily deteriorating relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. The latest round of U.S.-brokered peace talks collapsed in April. Three Israeli teenagers were abducted and murdered in June, followed by the revenge lynching of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who was burned to death. A summer war in the Gaza Strip—that also involved Palestinians firing missiles into Israel—then killed more than 2,000 Palestinians and 71 Israelis, plus a Thai national. It seems as though Israelis and Palestinians have been slipping deeper into a chasm for months.

“We unequivocally condemn all violence against civilians,” said Said Hamad, chief representative of the Palestinian General Delegation in Canada, in a statement offering condolences to the families of victims in the synagogue attack. He said the attack, as well as recent arson attacks against mosques—and what he described as “raids” by Israeli settlers and security forces on the Noble Sanctuary—“represent violations of the fundamental tenets of Islam and Judaism.”

Although Regev blamed Palestinian leaders for spreading lies about Israeli intentions concerning the Temple Mount, he also said he didn’t believe recent attacks in Jerusalem were a reaction to any Israeli policies, instead, linking them to radical Islam, including as practised by extremists outside Israel, such as Islamic State, which has taken over large chunks of Iraq and Syria.

“There’s nothing political about it. It’s hatred. It’s extremism,” he said, noting that the weapons used by the synagogue attackers—knives—were the same ones used by Islamic State to behead its captives. “The real challenge we’re all facing, Canada and Israel, is this resurgent Islamist extremism. The same people who are causing problems in Jerusalem are the same people in Syria and Iraq. It’s the same radical, extreme theology. This is not just a regional problem. It’s a global problem.”

Khaled Elgindy, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who has previously advised the Palestinian leadership on negotiations with Israel, says attributing the attacks to religious extremism is an Israeli tactic to avoid confronting legitimate Palestinian political grievances that fuel anger and, ultimately, violence. “That’s not to justify it; that’s only to understand it and explain it,” he says. “If we bury our heads in the sand and say there’s no real cause of conflict here except the other side’s irrational hatred, we’re going to perpetuate the conflict.”

Palestinians in East Jerusalem are especially frustrated, he says. The Palestinian Authority doesn’t operate there. Residents are discriminated against by the Israeli government that controls them. “[East] Jerusalem is a wasteland,” he says. “I think people have no idea what a backwater it has become, economically.” Palestinians living there are poor, often prevented from easily visiting family in the West Bank because of Israel’s security barrier, and are increasingly angry, as Jewish Israelis move into their neighbourhoods or build homes in areas where they are routinely denied permits to do the same. Abu Ali, the father of one of the synagogue attackers, told the BBC, “This is a religious war.”

Shlomo Brom, a visiting fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces, agrees that religion has become a more prominent factor in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—with religious nationalists also exerting greater influence on Israeli domestic politics. But he says the primary factor fuelling recent violence is “the general frustration and lack of hope” among Palestinians. He believes a continued escalation of violence might be avoided if even limited political progress can be made that might convince Palestinians a negotiated settlement leading to the creation of a Palestinian state is still attainable.
Brom says there are differences between the current unrest and the uprisings of 1987 and 2000. Earlier intifadas, he says, included more political direction. Most of these recent attacks, he says, were carried out by people acting on their own initiative—“what we used to call popular terror, not organized terror.”

Another key difference is the location of the violence and the origins of its perpetrators. The second intifada, from 2000 to 2004, grew out of the West Bank, with Palestinians from the territory striking into Israel proper. The current unrest is, so far, mostly restricted to Jerusalem. The West Bank is generally calm.

That recent attacks do not appear to be part of an organized campaign may seem like a source of small comfort to Israelis, says Elgindy. But he says a wave of random, self-directed attacks may actually be worse, “because an intifada, you can negotiate with. It has political demands, it has a political address. This does not.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/why-recent-terror-attacks-in-jerusalem-are-sparking-fears-of-a-new-intifada/feed/4Two Palestinians storm Jerusalem synagogue, killing four Israelishttp://www.macleans.ca/news/world/two-palestinians-storm-jerusalem-synagogue-killing-four-israelis/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/two-palestinians-storm-jerusalem-synagogue-killing-four-israelis/#commentsTue, 18 Nov 2014 10:52:08 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=640327Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel will "respond harshly'' to the attack, which is the deadliest in Jerusalem in years

]]>JERUSALEM – Two Palestinians stormed a Jerusalem synagogue on Tuesday, attacking worshippers praying inside with knives, axes and guns, and killing four people before they were killed in a shootout with police, officials said.

The attack, the deadliest in Jerusalem in years, is bound to ratchet up fears of sustained violence in the city, already on edge amid soaring tensions over a contested holy site.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel will “respond harshly” to the attack, describing it as a “cruel murder of Jews who came to pray and were killed by despicable murderers.” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he spoke to Netanyahu after the assault and denounced it as an “act of pure terror and senseless brutality and violence.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, the first time he has done so since a recent spike in deadly violence against Israelis began. He also called for an end to Israeli “provocations” surrounding the sacred site.

In a statement, Abbas’ office said he “condemns the killing of the worshippers in a synagogue in west Jerusalem.” The statement called for an end to the “invasion” of the mosque at the holy site and a halt to “incitement” by Israeli ministers.

Israeli police called the incident a terrorist attack and said the two Palestinian assailants were cousins from east Jerusalem. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a militant group, said the cousins were its members. A PFLP statement did not specify whether the group instructed the cousins to carry out the attack. Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that runs the Gaza Strip, praised the attack.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said six people were also wounded in the attack, including two police officers. Four of the wounded were reported in serious condition. He said police were searching the area for other suspects.

Associated Press footage from the scene showed the synagogue, in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Har Nof neighbourhood, surrounded by police and rescue workers following the attack.

Wounded worshippers were being assisted by paramedics and a bloodied butcher’s knife lay near the scene of the attack.

“I tried to escape. The man with the knife approached me. There was a chair and table between us … my prayer shawl got caught. I left it there and escaped,” Yossi, who was praying at the synagogue at the time of the attack, told Israeli Channel 2 TV. He declined to give his last name.

Yosef Posternak, who was at the synagogue at the time of the attack, told Israel Radio that about 25 worshippers were inside when the attackers entered.

“I saw people lying on the floor, blood everywhere. People were trying to fight with (the attackers) but they didn’t have much of a chance,” he said.

A photo in Israeli media from inside the synagogue showed what appeared to be a body on the floor draped in a prayer shawl, with blood smattered nearby.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the attackers were Palestinians from east Jerusalem, which has been the scene of relentless clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in recent months. She identified the assailants as Ghassan and Oday Abu Jamal from the Jabal Mukaber neighbourhood.

Soon after the attack, dozens of police officers gathered outside the Abu Jamals’ home. Samri said this was part of the police investigation. She said residents threw stones at the police officers and that police have made arrests in connection with the attack.

Israel has been on edge with a spate of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis, killing at least six people in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Tel Aviv in recent weeks, prior to Tuesday’s casualties.

Jerusalem residents had already been fearful of what appeared to be lone wolf attacks using cars or knives against pedestrians, but Tuesday’s synagogue assault harkens back to gruesome attacks during the Palestinian uprising of the last decade.

Israel’s police chief said Tuesday’s attack was likely not organized by militant groups, similar to other recent incidents, making it more difficult for security forces to prevent the violence.

“These are individuals who decide to do horrible acts. It’s very hard to know ahead of time about every such incident,” Yohanan Danino told reporters at the scene.

Tensions appeared to have been somewhat defused last week following a meeting between Netanyahu, Kerry and Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman. The meeting was an attempt to restore calm after months of violent confrontations surrounding a sacred shrine holy to both Jews and Muslims.

Israel and the Palestinians said then they would take steps to reduce tensions that might lead to an escalation.

In his statement, Netanyahu blamed the violence on incitement by both Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and said the international community ignores the incitement.

Kerry blamed the attack on Palestinian calls for “days of rage,” and said Palestinian leaders must take serious steps to refrain from such incitement. He also urged Palestinian leaders to condemn the attack “in the most powerful terms.”

“Innocent people who had come to worship died in the sanctuary of a synagogue. They were hatched, hacked and murdered in that holy place in an act of pure terror and senseless brutality and murder,” Kerry said.

Hamas’ statement praised the synagogue attack, saying it was a “response to continued Israeli crimes, the killing, desecrating al-Aqsa (mosque),” a reference to a recent incident at the holy site.

Much of the recent violence stems from tensions surrounding the Jerusalem holy site referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount because of the Jewish temples that stood there in biblical times. It is the most sacred place in Judaism; Muslims refer to it as the Noble Sanctuary, and it is their third holiest site, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

The site is so holy that Jews have traditionally refrained from going there, instead praying at the adjacent Western Wall. Israel’s chief rabbis have urged people not to ascend to the area, but in recent years, a small but growing number of Jews, including ultranationalist lawmakers, have begun regularly visiting the site, a move seen as a provocation.